


Ravishing Golden Animals (as Vain as L.A.)

by monocrows



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Blackmail, Blood and Gore, Bureaucracy, Child Death, Druglording, Drugs, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Everything may change, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Family Drama, Gen, Gun Violence, I'm Sorry, Illegal Activities, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Intrigue, Los Angeles, Manipulation, Moral Ambiguity, Politics, Power Play, Rating May Change, Rough Sex, Scheming, Show Business, Sibling Incest, Sibling Rivalry, Tags May Change, Twincest, dead Starks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2018-09-14 01:49:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9151834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monocrows/pseuds/monocrows
Summary: Modern AU. Wherein the Lannisters are not the snobs of Westeros but the snobs of L.A.There is a political vacuum in Tywin's company after Robert's death. How will his troubled children fare amidst the newly come contenders? Tywin as the typical hard-handed business mogul. Tyrion as the typical troublemaker. Jaime as the typical do-nothing dreamboat. Cersei as the typical fashion icon Cruella. Or are they? (Feat. Sansa Stark as the very unlikely intern who needs to watch and learn.)Focusing on the fates of Tyrion, Cersei, Jaime, Sansa, and all of their friends and foes as they jockey for power and survival across the upper planes of the Californian society rollercoaster.





	1. Tyrion

**Author's Note:**

> A friendly word of warning: I have no idea what I'm doing. Some of it might give you the impression that I do, but that's just to fool slackers who skim over author's notes. Anyway, do have a look.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a guilty drunk dwarf at a funeral, and the first contender is introduced.

I.

  
“More beer.”

  
It was the only eloquent thing he’d been able to mumble all morning. The dark empty bottle seemed to stand in agreement with him on the matter as it kept grinning back at him—a crooked pumpkin that slightly resembled his face, tinted green like shitty toothpaste, mocking him with his own bloodshot, mismatching eyes. _Fill me if you dare…_

  
Shae had said something of the sort last night, and he’d taken her up on the challenge as any fool would do. _You_ are _a fool_ , he told himself as he headed towards the snack bar for a refill. He thought that maybe if he only used one bottle and bowled it up from the bulk dispenser over and over, his extensive use of the refreshment compartment would go unnoticed by his dear family. _The biggest fool there is._

  
He found uncle Gerion and uncle Kevan standing by the drinks buffet, sharing old Nam stories and effectively blocking out most of the good liquor. Tyrion had to stand on his tiptoes and clear his throat several times in order to get their almost reluctant attention. He greeted them, feeling small. Father would have him tug at his leg too, no doubt.

  
His uncles exchanged sympathetic looks as they made way for him to access the buffet. He almost made a remark about the pork sauce stain glistening among Gerion’s many overlapping chins, but held it back, the way he usually held back puke in public. Pity was one of the things drunk Tyrion handled worse than sober Tyrion.

  
Tyrion hesitated as he approached the bar. No one started drinking this early at a funeral and so he’d been lucky enough to have the bar all to himself so far, which had allowed him to use the aid of a stepping chair. As he felt the eyes of his uncles boring holes through the back of his dim gray mourning shirt, however, he knew his streak of good fortune had abandoned him. Tyrion felt a strain in his belt as he tried to propel himself up. He reached over to the draft beer tap, coaxing out every inch his modest build had to offer. It was too far back. No one ever thought of midgets when they installed stationary alcohol, or ATMs, or stripper poles. The beer bottle slipped from his malformed fingers and toppled along the sideboard, making hollow rolling noises as it wallowed away from his reach.

  
He grabbed the first bottle that stood in the way of his grasping hand—Jack Daniels, thank God—and nodded briefly to his uncles, not daring to look up to see if they seemed uncomfortable or were holding back guffaws, before he strolled back to his nook near the dumpsters. It hadn’t been occupied by anyone while he’d been away. _What a shock._ He wasn’t sure if it was the stench of fresh shit or the smell of a drunk dwarf that repelled the rich people around him (he was willing to bet on the latter), but he wasn't complaining either way. Unlike most of his relatives he found little appeal in spotlights. Most of the time he was quite happy to be left alone, and either way, today he doubted he could maintain a conversation with these people if his father handed him a script and a pair of reading glasses. Fortunately the old lion had been preoccupied with a press release all morning so that he'd only managed a few severe glances from afar at his son's barefaced alienation. Tyrion just grinned sheepishly and kept snogging his bottle. He was flying under the radar today and they both knew it. 

He shugged. Even if his breakfast wasn't on its way to the Californian central piping and his brain still knew where up was, it wasn't like people were tripping over themselves to come talk to him.  _A fat corpse in the building and I’m still one of the more repulsive things around here._ If he wasn’t part—however a small one—of almighty Tywin Lannister's sacred offspring, they'd probably have had him thrown out the window like a grubby kitten. 

  
“Baby brother!”

  
The wail was way too joyful for the nature of the particular occasion, and Tyrion immediately recognized it as property to the single person in the room that mattered in the slightest to him. Tyrion turned around to face his visitor, half-grinning despite himself.

  
Jaime wore a fitted black suit and a smirk himself, if far more handsomely than his little brother. _Ecstatic to finally have Cersei all to yourself, brother?_  He greeted Jaime with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

  
“Enjoying yourself, little brother?”

  
Tyrion lifted up the half-downed bottle and jiggled it like a bell. “The drinks and I have come to the mutual agreement to enjoy each other.”

  
Jaime’s grin thinned. “Do try to remain conscious. You know Dad has vetoed any messes today.”

  
Tyrion grimaced tiredly. “Ah yes. How could I forget about father...” He brought the bottle to his mouth and took a long gulp. He doubted there were a great many other families out there that turned funerals into public spectacles quite this effortlessly. He already could hear it in his father's voice,  _you're failing the funeral, son,_ and it'd be funny if it wasn't so damn sad. “I'm doing this for him, you know," Tyrion sighed with a tired smack of his lips. "You know booze makes me sympathetic towards shits I couldn't be bothered with when they were alive and kicking.”

  
“Robert was Dad’s headliner COO,” Jaime muttered, in a voice that commited to no further defense of the man.

Tyrion frowned and leaned against the polished marble wall. He was getting more light-headed by the minute. Was he _really_ that drunk? “Since when are you such a valiant defender of the man who used to fuck our dear sister?” He regretted the words as soon as they escaped his lips. Through his fucking spattered windshiled of a vision he still saw the way Jaime’s jaw flexed and clenched. Shit. He'd have to count on Jaime to forgive him for this drunken slip, just like any other time.

  
“Where _is_ the glowing widow anyway?” he hurried to avert the subject, peeking around the room in pinchbeck concern.

  
His brother shrugged. “Last I saw her she was accepting condolences from that shrimp Stannis.”

  
Tyrion almost laughed out loud. Strict, uptight, stone-faced Stannis Baratheon and his sweet, poisonous, prone to making scenes out in public sister forced into a conversation that would have to last longer than the compulsory twenty seconds at the annual family brunch? Might as well throw in a mad dog, a couple of cats and some cleaning service for the scratched eyeballs. “Hope father hasn’t invited too many photographers in here today,” Tyrion chuckled to himself.

  
“She's better now,” Jaime argued automatically, though it came off half-hearted at best. “She can control herself.”

  
Tyrion couldn’t quite affirm that, but he didn’t want to dampen Jaime’s mood any further, so he forced himself to smile. _I am the jester, aren’t I? It’s the least I can do for him._ Cersei might fuck him, but Tyrion knew how to talk to him. “Shouldn’t you be around her? Between that killer dress and that fresh off the mental clinic perfume she _just_ might make Stannis melt.”

  
They both snickered at that. Tyrion offered Jaime the Jack Daniels and he made to take it, or reached for it anyway. The stump hung between them like a bad joke. _Shit._

  
“Listen, Jaime…”

  
“It’s alright.” His brother's face was cheerless as he struggled to grin. “You win some you lose some, eh?”

  
Tyrion hated seeing him like that—beat and washed out and worn down, like a skeleton trying to slip on a military uniform. But he mostly hated himself. If Jaime hadn’t tried to pull his son out of the way, out from beneath the car wheels… _It’s what any father would do._

It wasn't Tyrion's fault. He hadn’t even been speeding. God knew he was grateful to just have an adapted car and a license. The brakes. It'd been the damn broken brakes. And Cersei, for letting her kid play in the street, because God forbid Joff got something denied. _Not me_ , Tyrion told himself for the thousandth time. _It’s not on me. Not my fucking fault._

  
Even though the state court had agreed with the sentiment—much to Cersei’s hysterical dismay—even though the case file had been closed with what he imagined must be a big red silencing duct tape that said ‘ACCIDENT’, bright and ugly and written with the spilled blood of his nephew, there were parts of Tyrion that still thought otherwise.

  
It was done. There was nothing he could do about it. And yet… Regrets got you nowhere. Joffrey was still dead, Cersei was still hopping from one private mental clinic to another, and Jaime was still missing a hand. No one cared if Tyrion was fucking _sorry_.

  
Amidst all of this, Robert’s death had come as a welcome distraction. If the man had ever cradled any sort of fatherly concern for the boy he'd never realized wasn’t his own, Tyrion had never spotted it. And if Cersei had hated her husband before, Tyrion knew it was around Joffrey’s death that she had started plotting his painful demise. Sadly she’d never been much of a keen plotter, his sister. He still remembered the look on her face at Joffrey’s funeral, that strange gleam in her eye he’d mistaken for tears. And he was pretty sure _everyone_ still remembered the knife that had flashed in her grip, and the blood, and the ambulance…

  
She hadn’t been able to get Robert clean in the gut. She’d stuffed the knife handle-deep though. Typical Cersei.

  
Robert had somehow been persuaded not to press charges or even file for divorce from his beautiful if a little unstable wife. How father had managed it Tyrion had no idea. Committing Cersei to a treatment facility had been unavoidable though. They’d managed to keep the press out of it, for the most part. Again, Tyrion hadn’t the slightest of clues what magic wand their father had been waving about, but he had to give credit where it was due: the old papa sure had spared the family plenty of on-screen embarrassments.

  
“I better go find her.”

His brother’s words pulled Tyrion from his thoughts. It felt like waking from a dream, a long, heavy, strikingly convincing dream. _That dream is your life_ , Tyrion thought. _You better learn to live it again._ Tyrion nodded when he realized his brother was standing there awkwardly, waiting for a sign that it was okay to go. Jaime was the only one who ever bothered asking him for permission to do anything.

  
He closed his eyes as Jaime departed. Bile rose up in his throat. Picking a spot near the restrooms had been a strategic decision. He cursed under his breath, steadying himself with a hand to the wall, feeling a peculiar midday hangover kick in. _That’s what you get for starting to drink at fucking 9 a.m._

  
He made his way to the restrooms, which were thankfully vacant, because Lannisters didn’t shit, of course. Only after he had double-checked the lock on the cabin did he watch the vomit set sail from his mouth and down the funnel-shaped opening. He observed it with a defiant calmness and took his time flushing, refusing to admit the pettiness of the situation. 

  
Jaime had successfully fished out their sister from among the guests, apparently, because the first thing Tyrion heard when he walked back out to the main hall was Cersei's discontented voice. He quickly veered, backing away and creeping near the wall, careful to stay in the shadows as he craned his neck to get a view of the scene despite his better judgment. He quickly spotted his siblings by the buffet, discreetly hissing at each other like a pair of angry cats.

Most of the attendees had transferred themselves to the secondary hall to pay their respects to Robert’s gaping coffin, leaving the large Peninsula event hall their father had rented vastly unoccupied. It seemed that the twins were taking full advantage of the cleared area to sort out whatever issues were typical for a brother and sister that exchanged a little more than hugs at Thanksgiving.

Tyrion sighed at his siblings' timing. Tact was a skill the both of them had been forced to learn, though to say either was a natural would be an obvious lie.

Well. He'd caught them doing stranger things at a funeral, he supposed. 

Up near the drinks, the argument was still going strong. Jaime had grabbed Cersei by the elbow and was talking to her in a low, weary voice. Their sister talked right over him, her tone shriller and more wrathful. Tyrion cringed a little when her voice started jumping off the walls of the spacious room.

  
He briefly wondered if it was serious, or if it was one of those fights that ended with the two of them in a closet, or in the restrooms, or in father’s chambers, or someplace else they thought Tyrion didn’t know about. He strained his ears, trying to catch trail of the conversation. He couldn’t make out all of what they were saying as far as back in the corridor as he was, but he strongly believed the words ‘Stannis’, ‘accuse’, ‘murder’ and ‘fuck’ came into mention more than once. He shook his head.

  
_Our dear sister—deep in shit yet again. Who would've guessed._

  
Still, she’d done a quick enough job of getting herself back in there. Cersei swimming in business currents again was a recent development. A troublesome one, too. She _seemed_ more composed, but Tyrion had quickly dubbed it a show she was putting on for their father. _Always a good girl in front of Daddy._  He’d made sure to keep his distance. It wasn’t that he feared for his life, exactly, although she’d made enough threats for the message to sink in. It was more that whenever she looked at him he would see the Cersei that had cursed him to hell in that courtroom, make-up smeared clownishly across her face, red dress torn like blood, and the image of another woman would swim up in his head, a woman who’d died giving life to him, and all of a sudden he wouldn't be able to look at her anymore.

  
They hadn’t had a proper conversation in over two years, not since that damn Tuesday afternoon in the courtroom. And even then the exchange could hardly be called talking: her screaming for him to just _die die die_ while the security guards dragged her out by the elbows, followed by a group of paramedics clutching tranquilizers in their white gloved hands. Tyrion shuddered. The whole thing had played out like a scene straight out of a trashy drama remake, overacted and glossy and cheap. Only her words had stayed with him, coming to haunt him like chants in some of his more vivid nightmares. ‘Murderer’ and ‘freak’ and ‘monster’, and ‘my son, you killed my son’ in that fucking shattered voice. Damn her.

  
All of a sudden, it was all too much. Memory of the accident, the booze, the sight of his siblings standing so close — so very intimate, so very hostile, and it was like his feet were moving on their own accord, carrying him towards them, stinking of puke and beer and expensive suit. His mouth was dry, not knowing what he wanted from them or what he’d say. _Anything_ was better than the silence.

  
As soon as they noticed him approach, they both stiffened. Cersei immediately disentangled from Jaime’s grasp, as if preparing for impact. Tyrion refused to back down. He kept his pace steady, all the while feeling like a cub that was about to walk in on the grown-up lions. _I’m a lion too, I’ll be damned, I am one too, just a bit smaller. And more drunk. Probably._

  
He reached their spot and halted his step in front of them. Looking up, he hated the bulge in his throat as he opened his mouth. He looked at Jaime first, whose eyes kept skipping between him and Cersei, as if he could locate the jolts of electricity that jumped in the air. And then he turned to Cersei. He couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at her, truly looked at her. It felt like ages. He swore he spotted wrinkles on her glammed up face that had not been there before. The fluorescent light made her foundation gleam an eerie, cadaverous shade of chalk as she stared at him with a mixture of resentment, shock and something else that wrenched his gut all over again.

  
He opened his mouth and then closed it, like a fish out of water. It was like someone had been fucking with his vocal cords, knotting them together in the tightest neck tie he'd ever worn. Then he realized there was nothing to say. No words would make Cersei be offended by his presence any less, or make up for what had transpired between the three of them, or wash out the black anathema he seemed to carry on his forehead. It hit him like a pile of bricks to the chest, unexpected and grim and just a bit funny. _Well fucking done, Tyrion. Well played._  

  
He reached over to the buffet, groping blindly for a bottle to grasp. He could hear the clank of Cersei's heels as she stomped away, muttering something to Jaime, or to herself. Jaime tsked and murmured something along the lines of 'he didn't mean to, Cers', but when had Cersei listened to either of them? Tyrion kept searching. Just when he thought his relatives had soaked all the booze available, he heard a clinking sound and sighed with relief. He pulled the bottle by the throat, pretending it was Cersei instead. It was cold enough to be her, too.

  
It felt too light to the touch. His fears were confirmed when he finally hauled it down from the high table. _Fuck._ His empty beer bottle from earlier mocked him with his own toothpasty reflection yet again. 

  
Just as he was about to head back up to resume the most self-conscious search for a drink in his life, he heard Jaime clear his throat behind him.

  
“Um, Tyr…”

  
He turned around, ready to deliver his apologies and disappear from the face of earth. He found himself facing a small wooden chair instead. Tyrion eyed the thing, feeling stupid and grateful at the same time. Jaime had a way of making him feel that way, for some reason. “Thank you, brother,” he managed, and his voice cracked slightly. He tried to mask it with a cough, which wasn’t all that difficult to do, considering what an avid smoker he’d used to be in his teens.

  
Jaime nodded, though his eyes drifted towards the hall entrance, heavy with unspoken words that weren’t meant for Tyrion.

  
"You should go to her. It's alright." 

  
Jaime hesitated. "Are you sure?"

It wasn't. It wasn't alright at all, but what was he supposed to say? 

  
_No, I want you to pick me over her for once. She doesn't deserve you to love her so unconditionally. She hardly deserves you to love her at all._ But Jaime loved her nonetheless, like some cruel joke the universe sent raining down on the entire family of golden fools, a punishment, perhaps, for owning the world, and no matter how tightly he fisted the inside of his pockets, Tyrion knew that he would always be left behind for the sake of her.

  
But Jaime was hers all the same. Tyrion didn't know which hurt more—the fact that his brother seemed unable to fall out of love with her, or that _he_  never did learn to properly hate her. 

  
"What sort of a brother would I be if I kept my dear sibling from patching things up with the sister we share?" he joked with a smile that perhaps had more bitterness to it than his usual self-irony. "Though I'm afraid it's hardly a fair share. All her good parts have gone to you."

  
Jaime smiled weakly and dipped his head, acknowledging the act of selflessness, and then he was gone. Tyrion watched sadly as his brother traced their sister's invisible steps with a haste that was almost cartoonish. _Well damn, Jaime._

  
The sound of hushed voices told him that the room was slowly flooding back with people. Tyrion protruded his neck, trying to get a better vintage point of the drinks, see if there was anything worthwhile up there to justify him making a caricature out of himself with that chair. 

  
"Not much good stuff left, I'm afraid." Oberyn Martell's deep Spanish accent rang playfully in his ear. As usual, the man was standing too fucking close. His silent breath allowed him to sneak in on people like a viper in the sands, and the slight vibe of homoeroticism that oozed from his thick aftershave did not help one fucking bit.

  
"Martell," greeted Tyrion with a smile that felt fake even to his own teeth, "nice to see you." 

  
"Sometimes, maybe. But apparently not today," the extravagant fashion guru purred with an all too clever look. "Don't you have a joke for me? I must say I've grown quite fond of your midget humor."

  
Tyrion looked around pointedly. "We _are_ at a funeral. Would be sort of cheap, when it's clear whom life's already pulled the ultimate joke on."

  
Oberyn laughed sultrily. The man laughed like an expensive slut. Was dressed like one, too: cream white double breasted trench coat, reflective aviator sunglasses, pointed burgundy boots that looked like something Cersei would kill for, and... were those _stockings_ Tyrion saw peering up the man's thighs? All his personal design, if the intricate J'ADORNE logo was anything to go by. Only Oberyn Martell's scandalous image could carry the blow of such looks. Hell, the bastard had made the trend go viral. 

  
Oberyn leaned on the cleared bar table, ruffling Tyrion's hair artistically. If he smelled the bile, he did well on concealing it. "You like my new line?" 

  
"Certainly. Too bad it probably doesn't come in my size."

  
A slender finger lifted up Tyrion's chin. "We must schedule a fitting. I'm sure we can work something out to squeeze you in."

  
Tyrion cringed at the sheer deliberateness in the man's every word. He peeled the limb off his face as politely as he could, and coughed. Oberyn grinned. "I'm sad to see you so sour, Imp. To be honest, I was hoping to catch you in a good mood."

  
Tyrion knew impending business when he heard it. "What can I do for you?" 

  
Oberyn tilted his head, seemingly engrossed with whatever imaginary dirt was under his fingernails. "Oh it's just a small matter, really. We're all very sad about Baratheon's untimely demise, by the way." 

  
Tyrion shrugged. "Could have been even more untimely if my sister's good work with the knife hadn't been undone by those surgeons." 

  
Oberyn chuckled again, but this time it was more of a slick way to cut in. "Your sister, yes... Very beautiful, resourceful woman. Had the pleasure to speak with her this morning during her late husband's wake. She would've made a fine addition to my models collection back in her day." 

  
"Yes, she's a joy to us all, even though she appears to be something of your contestant in the fashion circles these days."

  
"Hardly. I design clothes, she sells them on the covers of her magazines." Oberyn took off his glasses and winked conspiratorially. "I'm afraid our passions don't quite overlap."

  
Tyrion was starting to get tense. _It's not like him to bullshit around a point._   "You said you needed something?" 

  
Oberyn paused, as if carefully selecting his words. "It is no secret that there has been an... opening, of sorts, in your father's business company, now that his chief COO has passed away and his last remaining son is years away from qualifying to fill in his father's shoes."

  
Tommen was a sweet child, not very bright, true, but he was well-mannered, and his fondness of cats and candy was quite endearing. If Tyrion had any say in things, which he most certainly didn't, he'd keep the boy away from all the ugliness, let him grow into a decent man with a clean slate. Of course Cersei had other plans, or so Jaime told him.

  
Tyrion took his time answering. Oberyn's request did not catch him off-guard. It was common knowledge that there was bad blood between him and Tywin Lannister, ever since that dog Clegane—former ruffian, now head of security at Lannister Inc—had tried to force himself on his beloved sister. So naturally he would be looking for more collateral means of contacting the owner of the company. The _timing_ was what mildly surprised him. It had been clear as day that there would be a slaughterhouse over the newly freed spot in the comfortable shade of Tywin Lannister's mighty wing, but Tyrion had expected the vultures to wait at least until after the burial before they started tripping over one another in a rush for the head start.

  
He clicked his tongue. Expecting decency from these people was like waiting for a shark to say that no thank you, it didn't feel like eating those poor Mexican tourists today. Tyrion decided he had no desire to be a transmitter between his father and his potential employees. Whoever Martell had to pitch for the job, he'd have to suck up for it to Tywin Lannister, fair and square. "If you have someone you'd like to put forth for the position, I'm afraid you will have to take it to my father. I might be the head of sales, but you will find I have very little say in anything outside my field. Except the drinks department. I'm a god in the flesh there."

  
Oberyn's lips pulled in a greasy smirk. "You misunderstand me. I am not here to suggest an associate for the job. I'm here to take it myself."

  
That was something of a curveball. He’d expected Oberyn to try and sneak in one of his protégés—God knew there was one for each of his outfits—but the flamboyant Adonis of the designer world himself? That was hardly a turn of events he had foreseen. Tyrion squinted, mistrust flashing in his mismatched eyes. “Not sure if you’ve had time to spare a glance at the vacancy notice, but my father has specifically asked for people with _experience_.”

  
Oberyn smirked, stretching his carefully trimmed padlock beard. “I assure you I am a very seasoned man, in more than one purview. In fact I have all the experience your father could want. Just take J’adorne, for instance. It's an enterprise at least as big as Lannister Inc, and I’ve kept it afloat for over twenty years without turning two-thirds of my employees into CO walking sticks. _And_ I have been wise enough to allocate my time as not to let my visits to dubious establishments slip into neglect. In a way, I think I’ve managed to outdo the great Tywin Lannister… at least where my bedroom's concerned.”

  
Under any other circumstances, Tyrion would have dignified the comment with a chuckle. Now he just pursed his lips, fighting to control the feeling that he was getting dragged into something that would hold him by the balls for a long time. “Working under my father is a big commitment in the long run, you realize? I don’t imagine you’d be willing to set your own company aside to do my father’s bidding at Lannister Inc.”

  
“Oh I have no problem multi-tasking.” Oberyn flashed another wolfish grin. “A fact you could confirm at any given house of pleasures.”

  
Did _everything_ about this man have to get compressed to eccentric clothes and fucking? "My deepest apologies, but as I mentioned, you will have to consult my father on the matter. He's been very clear that I am to be stripped of my noble rank should I try to meddle in any part of the business the way I usually do."

  
Oberyn nudged him larkily. "Come on, little man, I thought out of all your relatives you were the least full of shit."

  
Tyrion stood his ground. "No one likes a poor dwarf, Martell. Not sure anyone likes a rich dwarf either, but it certainly increases my chances. In any event, you should go talk to my father. Afraid there's no way around it." 

  
"I will, eventually. I don't expect you to hand me a contract. All I ask is that you throw in your five cents when the position comes in talks at one of your excruciating meetings. You know, the ones where the three hundred COs dump all the paperwork on the two actual workers, roll down the blinds and pretend to talk business while getting drunk." 

  
Tyrion would argue, but that _was_ how most meetings went, for him anyway. He considered Oberyn's request for a moment. The man was buzz and controversy, through and through. It would be difficult to present him as an adequate choice for an ice-cream man, let alone someone deserving a spot on a multi-billion company's board of directors. The prospect of someone like Oberyn sitting the conference table along the likes of his father and Varys and that jackass Baelish was as ridiculous as it was tempting.

"And in exchange for my good word of recommendation, what would I hope to acquire?"

  
Oberyn's lips parted in what could only be described as a display of his perfect white teeth. "Why yes, I keep forgetting it's all about gain with you Lannisters. I'm afraid that particular family trait has not gone lost even on you, dwarf. Let's see then... One more valuable friend sitting on that long cold table can never be redundant, eh? But I suppose that alone wouldn't suffice." Oberyn gave a sigh. "How about me not telling your Daddy about the little sex kitten that's been crashing at your place these past couple of months?"

  
_Shae_. Tyrion stiffened. "Nice try, Martell, but I've no idea what you're talking about."

  
Oberyn fixed his coal eyes on him. A precarious mockery lit up his face as his tongue darted out like a snake's. "Don't make a fool of me, Lannister. I think you do. She's in your house right now, yes? Probably lying around on your settee or your couch or wherever it is you usually do her, in just her pink panties, waiting for her walking purse to come home." Oberyn looked around casually. "Your sister's dead husband has attracted quite the gossipy crowd here today, you know. One word from me and news would travel to your father quicker than the fucking Internet."

  
Tyrion exhaled sharply, flaring his nostrils, refusing to avert his gaze. The man didn't have any solid evidence to prove Shae's existence, or else he would have brought it up already. But even if Oberyn was going off on rumors he'd picked at one whorehouse or another, Tyrion was well aware that he'd been like a big red flashing dot on his father's radar ever since the incident with Tysha. He'd send Clegane to Tyrion's apartment before Tyrion could lift his damned cellphone to warn Shae, tell her to scram and not call him for a couple of weeks. _Not that she'd listen._  She'd brush it off, like she did whenever he talked in 'the naggy voice'.

  
He wanted to punch something. Was forced to settle for latching on to the gin tonic Martell passed him instead. He downed the whole thing in a single gulp and leaned back. A powerful fatigue fretted his bones. "How'd you know?" Not that it mattered. _To think I was almost willing to do it for him anyway._

  
Oberyn shrugged like he was the most care-free man in the world. "She has her girlfriends."

  
"And?"

  
"Ellaria and I have had most of her girlfriends."

  
Tyrion groaned, feeling forty. _I told her to stay away from the sluts._ Perhaps he should have heeded the advice himself, back when the paparazzi had sniffed out his condo with Tysha and he had been turned into the laughingstock of the weekly tabloids. 

  
"You must know I don't look down on you, Tyrion, neither do I care who you fuck. As long as you get me in, I don't plan on revealing your secret to anyone." 

  
"A blackmailer with a code. Must be my lucky day."

Tyrion brooded against the counter. The man's motifs for wanting a way into Lannister Inc were a mystery, but Shae's safety was paramount, as usual. He'd do it. He had no idea how, but he'd do it. And he'd get back at Martell, the damn shark. He'd need to thread carefully though. Martell was a dangerous man to openly cross, and while he might not have the same connections and weight in the governmental affairs as Tywin Lannister, he still commanded over money and publicity to rival his father's. He just had to be patient. A patient dwarf had all the potential to become a happily avenged dwarf, somewhere down the road.

  
Cersei always called him a mole when they were teenagers and he kept finding—and delicately pointing out over family dinners—embarrassing bits of information about her and her cheerleader friends. _Let's see just how much dirt this mole can dig up before it drinks itself into an early grave._

  
"You do realize the position all but belongs to my nephew," Tyrion warned. "You'd just be sitting there like a dummy to keep his seat warm, and that's as good as you can hope the board to treat you." 

  
"It's touching that you care," Oberyn chuckled. "But trust me when I tell you: I plan to make quite the impression."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so we've got some basic schematics: ages are book-canon-ish, which means that Tyrion is in his late twenties, Jaime and Cersei are mid-thirties, Oberyn is around forty, and Joffrey died a kid. You get the idea. The only characters I've decided to age up are Sansa (16) and Margaery (19). Also, the plot bunny is very, very flimsy with me, so don't be surprised if one of these days I don't come back to update this. 
> 
> Fun fact—there are no documented cases of me biting any of my reviewers (well, without their explicit consent, that is). Enjoy the read ahead.


	2. Cersei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a funeral is fled, suspicion is raised, and there's a bit of a fire situation in the Ice Queen's backyard.

II.

  
Tommen was sniffing a bit too inelegantly to be passed off as the adorable prince-child, now heartbreakingly fatherless. _I swear to God if they catch sight of that snivel..._

  
Cersei tried to conceal her disapproval as her only boy hiccupped awkwardly beside the corpse of a man that hadn't been anything at all to him. The nine-year-old was clinging to his mother's expensive black halter dress for dear life, making his meek sounds and scrunching the fabric in a way that caused the fashion figure in Cersei to cringe.

  
Just this once, Cersei decided to let her boy's disconcerting lack of spine slide. It was his supposed father's funeral, after all, and Tommen hadn't made it to that age where he would be learning enough about Robert to properly despise him.

  
Still, something had to be done about those feeble moans, before the crowd started whispering and her boy was turned into the thing of gossip.

  
Cersei caught her son's plump chin—he liked his cupcakes, certainly more than he liked to read or exercise or play with her rich friends' children—between her heavily jeweled fingers, preventing any attempts on her son's part to escape the sight of Robert's corpse.

  
"Don't look away, my love," she whispered tensely through a foil of tenderness and teeth, aware of all the eyes that were stitched to their backs, just waiting for something to go wrong. When her boy just kept whimpering in her palm, she gripped him harder and added, "Your brother would have looked, you know perfectly well that he would have. Now, are you going to be half the lion he was, or are you going to be a good little boy and not embarrass me in front of all these people?"

  
Her throat burned as always at the mention of her firstborn, closing around the name and refusing to let go, but at least her youngest didn't try to wiggle out of her grip anymore. He slumped against her without a fight and faced the decomposing pile of flesh dutifully. Cersei swore she heard him mumble a prayer.

  
She stared down at her son with growing concern.  _Joff would have fought me on this for hours._

  
Tommen just wept and wept. His tears might be the only genuine display of affection in this entire charade, misguided as they were. Cersei found it somewhat appropriate, that the only person to truly mourn Robert’s death would be the child that had seen and heard the least of him.

  
Both Joff and Myrcella had become aware of their own insignificance in Robert's life early on. Joff had clawed for his father's praise like a starved pup but even that hadn't been enough to tear the senseless buffoon away from his beer and his sluts. Cersei had wanted to explain to her darling son that his so-called father had the attention span of a rut in heat, that he had no eyes whatsoever for what was happening beyond the tip of his overworked penis, but it would have done little good. Joff always idealized the man beyond good reason. Myrcella on the other hand had never sought the closeness of her father to begin with, preferring the company of her girlfriends over that of her family.

  
Not Tommen though. Tommen’s situation had been different. Due to circumstances—Robert’s growing neglect, mostly—her youngest had been spared the ugliest of what occurred under the Baratheon roof. Most of the time Robert seemed to forget he'd even knocked up his estranged wife a third time.

  
And now Tommen was crying for a father in name only. Cersei wondered what it was exactly that her son wailed for. Was it just the word of it, no more Daddy, or perhaps the ten hair rufflings he'd gotten from the fat oaf in his whole life? In any case she understood little of it, but tried not to judge her son too harshly. He wasn’t like Joffrey and would always need more of her help, her love, her patience.

  
What mattered now was that the corpse was there, proof that life was finally starting to show its kinder face to Cersei again. She looked down at the dead idiot one final time before they had to move along to make room for the rest of the attendees to pay their synthetic respects. 

  
She felt her chin automatically perk in defiance as she contemplated the sight of Robert's corpse with a cold, slow hatred.

  
Death had made him drabber, drinking the caddish redness from his cheeks, chin and nose so that he almost looked the businessmen the world had known him as. To Cersei, the woman who'd been forced to stare at his snoring mug for fourteen years, resisting the urge to gorge the muzzle of a gun and paint the walls with her misery, he looked funny, like an alien with an impeccable taste in fashion—hers, of course, because she might hate him but she would be damned if she let herself be linked to a poorly dressed corpse—even though that Richard James suit looked perilously absurd on him in spite of her best efforts. Those things were intended for men of Jaime's build and class, not a classical swine like Robert.  _They should outlaw tailoring these in such sizes._  

  
The mascara on him was starting to give, almost streaming down his dully grinning face, self-righteous and unapologetic even in death. The sight of his bloated face did little to thrill Cersei. If anything, it filled her with a sort of bitter, long-overdue sense of relief.  _He should have died two years ago._

  
Nothing in her life had ever come close to the exquisite feel of cutting the fat bastard open, not the day she became Mrs. Editor-in-chief, not the day she held Myrcella for the first time, not ever. She couldn't believe it herself, the  _rightness_  of it.

  
Funny thing was, she hadn't even meant to stab him. But the debauched son of a bitch had been  _begging_  for it, making a pass at one of the waitresses at his son's fucking wake. All Robert'd had to do was keep it in his pants for three hours, at least  _pretend_  to feel something over the death of his first-born child. But no, of course not, otherwise he wouldn't be Robert. Cersei was still seeing red whenever she remembered how she'd discovered them in the closet on top of each other, like they were trying to rebuild the goddamn Sears Tower or something, right next to the room with the coffin. She'd had a knife for the whore too, if only they hadn't been so quick to call in the police.

  
And then what had come next... Cersei gritted her teeth. It was over, past her, she had to remind herself. It could have been much worse. It could have been  _prison_ , and then there would be no recovering from that, not even for a woman of her status.  _Especially_  for a woman of her status. Compared to that, a few months away at a madhouse— _a mental wellness center,_  as they liked to pretty it up for the press—should be nothing. She’d been over it with Qyburn, and yet... And yet perhaps she’d served her time after all, not behind bars but behind maddening white walls, trading orange for yellow, and it didn’t make any difference to her. It was still too much, her freedom snatched, and her father had been at the root of it. He’d settle for less, more, if it meant keeping the family name out of it.

  
It wasn't like she'd expected him to shed tears like an actual human or anything but the  _coldness_  of it all, the treatment she'd received from him, still shocked her in a stupidly sentimental sort of way. Not a single eyelash was batted as his men dragged her away from Casterly Estate on a cold Sunday night approximately ten hours after the state of California had dubbed her mentally unstable. No hugs, no lectures. She hadn't gotten so much as a damn goodbye, or a  _stay strong_ , or even a  _we're Lannisters,_ _how could you be so stupid_. Nothing but that riling, unmovable look of passive disapproval. 

  
It wasn't all bad though. She'd been forced to teach herself a few useful tricks in those hellholes. Between the relentless brain-poking and dull conversations that hardly went anywhere, she'd figured out how to pick locks, hide her liquor creatively and feign seizures just to get out of a painfully boring session with that ancient creature Pycelle. More importantly she'd learned how bide her time and store away her hatred. For all the humiliation that was forced on her, those places made her stronger, helped her realize she didn't just hate Tyrion for stealing Joff from her. It was everybody's fault, from the patrolmen to the paramedics, from Jaime's half-assed attempt at playing the hero to uncle Kevan’s apathetic endeavor to console her. Even father had his fingers in it, yes, even the great Tywin Lannister was to blame. She'd never forget the way he had his men rend her stiff, bloodied fingers from Joff's rigid body before she'd even gotten to breathe him in one last time.

  
Cersei quaked, blocking out the memories of that day before they overtook her. That entire sequence was a danger zone, sometimes her mind handled it better, sometimes worse. Qyburn was nowhere around and she always needed him, his voice, his reassuring hands, his magical pills, when her moments came.

  
No, she would not think about that now. Today was about Robert and celebrating the end of his march over her pride. Today was about salvaging what little joy could be drawn from a marriage that had brought her nothing but pain and misery. 

  
_Where are your whores, Robert? Not one of them came to see you off? I rather expected not. Not even your brothers had the decency to wait for your corpse to air-condition before they started bickering over your will and pointing their impudent fingers at me._

  
Cersei snorted, remembering her recent exchange with Stannis. There would be trouble coming that way soon, no doubt, but she had other things to worry about right now.

  
For instance, getting someone on the board of directors who wouldn't be causing any problems for Tommen in due time when her boy was ready to come into his inheritance. It had to be someone obedient, but also shrewd, smart enough to defend her interest yet one who’d know better than to go rogue on her. S _omeone who can do as he's bid but will also act independently when I need him_ _to_ , Cersei thought, _yes, a dog and a wolf all at once._

  
Baelish, perhaps, though the slicker could prove to be a wild card in the long run...

  
A tug on her dress distracted her from her thoughts. "Mommy, it smells."

  
_Robert stank more in life than in death_ , Cersei wished to tell her only boy, but Tommen was no Joff and didn't handle bluntness as well as his older brother had. Cersei bent over to wipe her son's leaking nose with a napkin. "Hush, my love. Death is never nice on the nose. Just bear with it for a bit and then we can go home, alright?"

  
Her cub blinked up at her with beady eyes that didn't suit a future business magnate at all. "Do you think Daddy's looking at us?"

  
Cersei laughed softly. "Take another look at him, my love. His eyes seem closed to me, don't they?"

  
Tommen shook his head. "No, I mean from up in the Heavens?"

  
Cersei nearly lost her cool at the ridiculous picture of Robert floating on puffy clouds with a halo over his head, fucking his way through a deck of winged tarts as he drank himself into a stupor.

  
She smiled down at her son thinly. "He's looking at us from somewhere alright."

  
The next few minutes were spent attending to her son’s unstable nasal secretion and unpredictable bowels.

  
In the end Tommen did wind up vomiting on the floor but luckily there weren’t any people around to see. Perhaps he was coming down with something, Cersei reasoned with herself, surely no child could not be  _that_  soft. After that Cersei didn’t want to risk another bout of humiliation and called in Dorcas, her full-time sitter, the only one she could remotely stand lurking about in her house, instructing her to get in there and collect Tommen, drop him off at daycare over at Lioness.

  
“I’m sorry mommy, I'll try to be good next time,” Tommen sniffed as he hugged her knee.

  
Cersei combed her fingers through her son's fine hair and told him it was alright, that he could stay longer at the funeral of the next uncle who died. That seemed to upset him but Cersei told herself he could use a small dose of harshness in his life. He’d thank her for it, later.

  
She watched after her boy longingly as he got ushered away by Dorcas.

  
How she envied him the easy escape.

  

* * *

 

  
Three hours later her cousin was waiting for her next to her personal luxury tinted limo, holding out her Armani fur coat for her. Cersei barely spared a look at the boy, too caught up in her fury to think at length about his potential uses. A single glance was more than enough to tell that the boy was a joke, anyway. The expensive fitted suit he was wearing made him look less like a man and more like daddy’s wardrobe raider, only reaffirming her opinion that clothes should be tailored to fit a person’s status and attitude as much as their measures.

  
Her distant relative had to struggle to keep the hem of her voluminous coat from licking the floor, with varying success. Those workout sessions at the gym that the boy had clearly been taking didn't seem to be paying off as it cost him some distinct physical effort not to let the costly garment drop on the slick tiles. Cersei deliberately slowed her step, just to prolong his torture. God knew she needed to vent. Not that she blamed her unhappiness on her teenage cousin. He was just an indirect victim, yet another one who had to suffer because of  _that_  creature, that homicidal, court-bribing little beast.

  
Cersei willed herself to respire deeply. Think of anything but that. What was calming, relaxing? Couture. Yes, she was in Milan, attending the latest Dior fashion show and weighing in on the dresses from the V.I.P. zone, flashing lights on her and microphones in her face. The Imp's low laughter still echoed over the chorus of the high society crowd, but at least it was a bit less unbearable than before.

  
Her cousin apparently took her actions to mean she'd be taking her time because he clumsily tried to throw her coat over his shoulder while stepping on his shoelace and tripping over backwards. Cersei hurried along, almost feeling bad for the boy that had been stuck with her precious possession. She was tall, taller than him, and even she dared not wear the thing unless she had a pair of ten-inch Louboutins to lean on.

  
A waitress ambushed her at the exit and Cersei had to dig her blood red nails into the palm of her hand to restrain herself from shoving the robotic thing to the side.

  
“Would you like a drink to go, Mrs. Baratheon?”

  
_Lannister_ , she itched to correct,  _now and always_ , but the glass that swirled in the girl’s hand was far too tempting to pass on.

  
She snatched it without a word, kept the clicking of her stiletto heels against the pale hardwood floor uninterrupted as she paced towards her cousin, let him finally approach her with her coat and, somewhat gingerly, cover her bare shoulders with it.

  
She had picked the embellished coat specifically for the occasion as she knew how it complimented the strength in her shoulders, the grace and suppleness of her build. The fucking weather channel had messed up the forecast though, and instead of the promised Armageddon of rainstorms and thunder, there was only an overcast that did little to keep the heat safely up high. Therefore she'd been forced to discard the coat at the entrance of the Peninsula or else she risked to look overdone and pretentious in front of the press, two things the editor-in-chief of a prime fashion magazine wasn't allowed to be. Theatricality had to be done subtly, not rubbed all over the place.

  
Cersei seethed. Yet another thing taken from her. She understood the concept of good days and bad days but the past year and a half had been a constant string of blood and losses. Most of it had been thoroughly documented by the press so that she was forced to dab a plastic smile on her face as she witnessed her life falling out of place. 

  
As the daughter of Tywin Lannister, she’d learned all about maintaining appearances very early on in her life. It was a basic means of survival in the high society circles. It didn’t make it any easier to swallow the blows as they came.

  
Take today, for instance. It had been one of those days that would leave a particularly sour dent in her pride. First she’d had to circle about Robert’s coffin and pretend to deplore the loss of him, then she’d had to listen to Stannis’ ridiculous accusations regarding the death of that useless head of communications Jon Arryn, and then on top of everything that hideous monster who should have never been allowed near a car in his miserable little life had the audacity to show his face to her…

  
Qyburn had advised her not to mix her pills with wine. Strongly suggested that she fucking didn’t, in fact.

  
But here was the thing: without the pills she was the train wreck that had to be dragged out of an asylum by Jaime approximately six months ago, and without the wine she was that deranged person that had to be yanked  _into_  a sanatorium by her father’s men another half a year back. It was something none of her shrinks seemed to understand with their calm, condescending demeanor and clinical brains.

  
What did they know. All they knew was how to take what little words she gave them and twist them around so they made her situation seem ten times worse than it really was, so they could have something to hold over her head. They just wanted to make her feel crazy and old so they could keep milking more money from father's bank account. Let them have at it. She’d help herself in any way she saw fit, and she took great pleasure in knowing that there wasn’t a single thing they could do about it. Whenever they questioned her about her drinking habits at the compulsory weekly sessions she simply brushed off the tirades with her finest mockery of an innocent voice and a rare smirk on her face. Past that, what _could_ they do? Technically she was out of the clinic and she’d sue their asses off before they had her take a sobriety test.

  
At least Qyburn seemed to get some of her frustration. Sometimes. But even he had counseled her to renounce alcohol for a while. The betrayal still stung, low and ticklish.

  
Today she’d decided to choose life over Qyburn’s charlatan wisdom, and she'd started drinking from her secret stash of house vintage almost as soon as she'd woken up.

  
(Or perhaps he knew better. Perhaps that’s why he only ever advised her, lipped suggestions, never firmly instructed her, lectured her, attempted to remake her into a docile little thing or tried to take away what was hers, like all the other shrinks around him.)

  
In any case, Cersei admitted there was some merit to Qyburn’s word of warning, because quite frankly she was all over the place, had started regretting not bringing some relaxants as Taena had advised almost as soon as the whole thing started. Her head was swimming a good three inches above the rest of her, making the world tilt on its axis so that she felt the periodic urge to retch all over her dress, her matching mini bag and the rest of the adjacent jewelry.

  
In her condition she’d handled everything as well as she could.

  
She’d put up a show of weeping around Robert’s corpse, tears ignited by the frustration of knowing that something as trivial as a kidney failure had finished him off where she could not (having Lancel sip the antifreeze in his drink had been the best she could come up with considering her circumstances, seeing as her father had made sure she and Robert be kept apart at all times except for social events, but it was nowhere near as satisfying as plunging that knife deep into his odious flesh). _All I do, I do for father._ So she could find her way back in Tywin Lannister's good graces and her former life be returned to her. She had even resisted the desire to spit in the coffin just before they'd shut it close like a dutiful daughter, concealing her disgust behind a glass of champagne.

  
She’d nodded and smiled indulgently at Stannis and brushed off his allegations as the mere lapse of judgment of a grief-stricken brother. She had even politely dissuaded his claims to Robert’s seat on her father’s company, dancing around the fact that she'd rather set herself on fire than see him or his nancy brother on the board of directors. She’d ignored the fact that Jaime still insisted on being impossible, once again refusing to meet her demands, as uncooperative as ever when it came to matters that didn’t entail the direct involvement of his dick. And finally, somehow, by some unknown miracle, she’d been able to walk away from the murderous dwarf without stabbing him in the eye with her fucking nail file.

  
Cersei would have to crack open another bottle of chardonnay in the limo to commend herself on the effort. It felt like a much deserved prize, for all the crap she’d been forced to take from what felt like every member of society’s upper class today.

  
She sighed in potent frustration. What was a woman to do when surrounded by dangerous enemies and borderline useless friends?

  
She focused her attention on the boy-hanger standing awkwardly in front of her and tried to think of something cheerful, like telling the driver to slam the limo into the hotel’s glass doors at full speed. Perhaps they’d take out at least some of the obnoxious staff as they cut through stacks of expensive furnishing, Stannis, if they were lucky.

  
Her cousin mumbled his greetings to his shoes and offered her her coat as if he was prepared to lose an arm along with it. Somewhere between the perfunctory smile she tossed his way—just the hint of it poking at the corner of her lips—and the faint nod the teenager gave her back, she realized she couldn't remember his name.

  
Not that it mattered how she'd address the fool. He'd lap up anything she had to give, any implication she threw his way. They were all Lancels to her, pretty young things wrapped up in her father’s last name. Their gold wasn't like Jaime's. Where his was thick and smooth and  _right_ , theirs rang hollow. They were eager to please her in words only but when it was time to man up and do some actual work for her, they all chickened out and only did as they were told after she either blew them in a dark hallway or had Clegane nudge a gun to their temples. In the end it was more trouble than it was worth as they remained too unreliable even after she'd had her persuasive ways with them. She'd had enough of shallow playthings. The stakes were too high for her now and it was Jaime she needed, not them. And Jaime was stubbornly refusing to be the man she needed him to be. 

  
Cersei let her cousin cover her in her furs, hold the door open for her as she slinked in the luxury sedan car, reclining on the door as she tried not to show just how impatient she was get away from the fucking hotel.

  
Her cousin's farewell was cut short by the upside down guillotine of the raising side window so that the poor teenager was forced to crane his neck and stammer out as many words as he could before the imminent snap. Cersei wasn’t in a generous mood, not in the least bit. She kept pressing down the button with her manicured finger, almost clipping a nail in her frustration, while giving the chauffeur instructions over the distraught chunter of her cousin's voice.

  
Only after she’d felt the rumble of the engine and heard the satisfying screeching of wheels did she allow herself to fractionally relax.

  
Breathe in, out, in, out, just like Qyburn had urged her. She felt the pressure in her wrist building and releasing as her fingers clutched and unclutched to a strange rhythm.

  
Cersei closed her eyes, trying to relax the tense muscles in her neck. She needed to recover her strength and only had this drive to do so. After all, her day was far from over. 

  
She had a magazine empire to manage, and she would not be seen with a creased skirt and an exhausted face peering from under her half-a-day-old makeup. There was power to the way one dressed and groomed, and Cersei Lannister always dressed to attract attention. Appearances could be an influential tool when wielded properly, a way of controlling the crowd through a combination of the right looks and the right demeanor. That’s why Cersei considered her sense of fashion to be her most valuable and notorious asset, up there with her last name and her beauty, a means to remind the idiots around her that  _she_  was the upper class, the woman who required things to go the way she wanted them and nothing less. And to promote her partner brands of course, that was also a part of it, part of the show, the show that started when you signed your first contract and ended when you were either dead or not news anymore.

  
Cersei wasn't planning on quitting the show anytime soon. She was an editor-in-chief after all, and as such she was always making sure her name made the headlines next to the likes of Prada and Louis Vuitton, and a lot of Versace too, lately.

  
Even so, work at Lioness wasn’t going as smoothly as it once had and she wanted to live things up, try something fresh. She had grand plans for this month’s issue, and she had the perfect stage for it. She had a good feeling about it, even though her plans may have run a bit ostentatious. They were overbudget and father had refused to back her so she’d had to kiss Renly Baratheon’s ass last minute in order to get his investment company to fund most of her key shoots.

  
_Renly Baratheon and Cersei Lannister, partners in crime on the runway and beyond._  She’d liked the sound of that as she skimmed through the yellow press, yes, even though it was funny, funny and bitter, considering how she could barely stand the fucker through all of the joined press they’d been doing lately. They were constantly at odds with each other, from the lighting and decor to the post-production processing of the negatives. Cersei had summoned all of her patience and tried to make it work, she truly had. She’d even offered the shirt lifter joint creative direction but no, he’d wanted a say in it all. When she refused to meet his ridiculous demands, Renly had just followed behind her, contradicting every order she gave, so their employees had to redo the concepts four times.

  
In the end Cersei had to concede to at least half of her brother-in-law’s insolent requests, on account of Taena, who'd insisted that any more meetings that went nowhere would surely kill the collaboration for good. Ugh. She supposed half the joke was on her.

  
In any case, the photo shoots were about to kick off and Cersei prayed to God they wrapped things up quickly, before she lost it and went hell-bent for leather on her employees.

  
While her mind paged through her schedule Cersei watched absently as fancy buildings gave way to more fancy buildings. Skyscrapers reached for the clouds like the greedy ambitions of the bureaucrats that conducted their little schemes from the upper floor office departments, while expensive cafés and famed designer shops sparkled and dazzled below.

  
Cersei didn’t have to roll down the window or even actively observe the flow of scenes to take in L.A. It was with her, in her, had been for a long time. Ever since it was decided that the Lannisters would be taking their business overseas to relocate from London back in the '90s, L.A. had been her central stage. The City of Angels was chaotic, alluring, hazardous and a quicksand for the unwary. It was made for her. It was where she felt truly at the center of it all, attended by floodlights on all sides, connected. She needed to be surrounded by the noises, all those little things beneath her, to feel secure and assured of her positions.

  
Perhaps that’s why she generally didn’t enjoy business trips, unless they were an excuse for a quick getaway with Jaime of course, but it had been years since they’d last taken one of those. She mostly left the traveling to Taena as her creative director. The Spanish woman often complained about wanting to go on an adventure together but Cersei was of the firm opinion that they didn’t need the surroundings of an exotic island or—God forbid—umbrellas in their drinks in order to work, talk or fuck.

  
As if on cue, Cersei heard her iPhone buzz and saw a familiar name light up the screen as she swiped across the sleek surface with her manicured nail.

  
_Are you coming today, dear?_

  
Cersei drummed her fingers on the side of the door, then typed in a  _yes_.

  
Her phone quivered again almost instantly. Taena spent more time typing on social media than Cersei, and it showed.

  
_How was the funeral?_

  
Cersei hesitated. She didn’t like to be interrogated about her day, Taena of all people should know that. She decided to give the woman a free pass just this one time. She didn’t have the energy to be mad at Taena too.

  
_Overdue._

  
_I figured you’d say something like that. Your knife hand still itching?_

  
Cersei rolled her eyes.

  
_Go fuck yourself._

  
_I’d rather you did._

  
Cersei tolerated these types of blatant come-ons only from Jaime.

  
_Never text me like that again. Or you’re fired._

  
A pause. Good. Her friend had better reconsider her strategy for the day.

  
_Sorry. You know I hired a new assistant for you._

  
Cersei crinkled her nose. She hated new girls. They were always there at her hip when she turned, trailing too closely behind her, taking up too much of her time, her space, her air. Cersei was a busy woman. She hardly had it in her to endure a sequence of endless questions, and to make it worse most of the dull creatures apparently had a hard time grasping the difference between being an invisible shadow and a nosy stalker.

  
_What was wrong with the old one?_

  
_Senelle? Senelle quit._

  
Cersei raised an eyebrow. That was a first. She was yet to meet a girl stupid enough to throw away her best shot at a glamorous career in the fashion business as Cersei Lannister’s very own protégé, under her wing.

  
_They never quit._

  
_This one did. After I threatened to leak some pretty juicy stills from her latest, uh, movie endeavor, that is._

  
_Why?_

  
_Turns out our little missy was a mole for Vogue. Fed them info about our upcoming shoots. Our employees. You._

  
Cersei took a slow breath, suppressing the snarl that threatened to knock her teeth together. The ungrateful bitch. Cersei had trained her, had patience for her missteps and her clumsiness. She’d had her suspicions that the girl might be straying but to think the little trash would take her good will and spit all over it…

  
_It’s not enough. I want her ruined._

  
_Took care of that too, don’t worry._

  
_How?_

  
She could hear Taena’s sultry laugh through the message.

  
_Leaked the stills anyway. Sent the whole tape to her parents. Crapped all over her CV. Relax._

  
Cersei felt the pressure in her cheekbones ease a little as she read through her friend’s text.

  
_You’re getting good at this._

  
_It pleases me to please you._

 _Hmm..._   _Did it just get incredibly hot in here or are you smirking?_

  
Cersei hadn’t been smirking but reading Taena’s easy flirting made her hum lightly to herself. She appreciated her friend reverting back to her usual breezy, no-strings-attached tone. This was less forced, more her.

  
_I never smirk. Destroys my foundation._

  
_Pooh._

  
_You should’ve waited for me before you picked a new girl._

  
_Nah, this one you’ll like._

  
This got Cersei’s interest.

  
_And you’re so sure because…?_

  
_I know you, C. See you when you get here._

  
Her friend should know better than to taunt her with that ridiculous nickname. Cersei cleared her screen without providing further response. She stuffed her phone back in her leather purse, careful not to ruin her nails on the zipper. She leaned back in her seat and finally popped open that bottle of chardonnay she’d promised herself earlier.

  
She had a long afternoon ahead of her.

 

* * *

 

  
The building of Lioness Publications was all a queen might want from a castle. Central location, right in the middle of Beverly Hills, a mere few intersections away from Rodeo Drive and right next to father’s main office building. People couldn’t help but make comparisons, always taking note of how both buildings stood out in their own right.

  
Cersei agreed. Where father’s glass-paneled edifice was tall and grey, all business and no decoration, hers was of a less conventional architecture, with arches reaching for walls over one another, fancy electronic billboards and lucent headings girthing the sleek granite, and a number of glass terraces jutting out in the air directly above the bustling streets.

  
Cersei liked looking at her building. It gave her this deep gut feeling of power and ownership, a kind of high she could never get enough of. It was the history of how she’d gotten where she was that held the whole thing together, the sweet memories, those were the things she drew from in place of the cigarettes she'd quit over a decade ago, whenever she felt a crack running across her exterior. She was greedy for the past, the glamour, the wealth, wearing her old conquests like Prada and surrounding herself with them in her moments of doubt.

  
She’d been the editor-in-chief for the past nine years, inheriting the position from the retired Rhaella Targaryen after her husband’s crimes had ruined the family’s reputation for good. Father had wanted to expand his working collaborations to the publishing circles and Cersei had finally been given a chance to prove herself. She’d never fallen out of love with fashion, even after she'd been forced to terminate her modeling career for good (her catwalk beauty had faded, they said, not even a woman of her caliber had any business on the covers of Elle and Marie Claire at twenty-five) and was married off to Robert Baratheon like a milked cow. She’d never stopped missing the runway though. So when she’d spotted a chance for herself to claw her way back in, she’d gone for it without a second thought. She'd taken over the magazine through a deadly combination of influence and cunning, despite the older Targaryen bitch’s strong and stubborn opposition. Cersei had taken hold of the sinking magazine and made it anew. Before her time, Lioness used to be called Targ. Monthly and it was nothing more than a one-note periodical, more of a bulletin, really. Cersei had brought in her vision and her ideas and together with Baelish and father’s funding they’d managed to kick-start a new major player on the fashion press playground.

  
Lioness was her life. In the terrible lapse between it and the decline of her modeling days, in those horrible few years she'd spent out of the public eye, it was like she’d dropped off the face of the earth. All of a sudden none of the invitations to cocktail parties, yacht club gatherings and charity ball events were addressed to her anymore. She'd been Robert's plus one and it drove her crazy with outrage and jealousy. It wasn't _fair_. She was more than a wife to some prominent CEO, ex-model daughter to one of the most renowned business mogul in the city. Lioness brought that back in her life, that _being someone_  she'd been missing so sourly. Here, now, she was equal parts Cersei and Lannister, and she liked it, the recognition and that sense of importance it gave her. Somewhere along her miserable marriage with Robert, as the years stretched and only took from her, she'd figured that kind of attention was the missing piece of her soul just as Jaime was the missing piece of her body. Being able to seize it was her second biggest pride after surviving her sixteen-hour labor to push Joff out into the world.

  
Cersei stepped into the premises of Lioness Publications with her head held high and even her headache fled momentarily as people's heads snapped up towards her and she allowed herself a moment to bask in the acknowledgment, the authority.

  
Almost immediately she knew something was not right. Their faces, it always was the faces that gave it away first. They were all looking at her but not respectfully, no, they were all  _frightened_ , as if a storm had swept the place and no one dared to tell her about the damages. Almost as if…

  
Her blood chilled.  _Tommen?_

  
Cersei strode like a tigress to the cowed receptionist—Sheila, she recalled vaguely—who shrunk back in her chair like an accordion and immediately started apologizing for some small and insignificant error from two years ago.

  
“Tommen,” Cersei spoke hoarsely over the young woman's stutter, “my son. Where is he? Is he safe? Is he hurt?”

  
Sheila blinked. “What? N-No, Mrs. Lannister, I think, I mean, your son is upstairs at daycare as you left him. I mean, as your sitter left him. Should he be somewhere else?”

  
Cersei flared her nostrils, giving the woman a long, appraising look, a predator deciding the fate of its pray. “What’s going on here?”

  
Sheila paled, then shrugged. It was the worst fake shrug Cersei had ever seen in her life. “The usual. Uh… People coming in to work, or looking for work. Everyone’s very grateful.” The woman’s eyeglasses seemed like they were about to pop. Cersei dared one fucking shard to hit her in the eye and mess up her liner, she just dared it. “We’ve had to make a few cuts recently…”

  
Cersei frowned. “Senelle?”

  
Sheila seemed surprised. “Oh, you’ve heard about that.”

  
Cersei snorted. “Of course I’ve heard about that. Taena told me.” She made sure her voice dropped down a few extra degrees as she spoke around her pressed teeth, “I make it a point to keep myself informed about the state of my own company.” _So don’t think to slack off, little bitch,_ hailed the unspoken message. _There are ten replacements of you waiting in line to be thrown a bone._

  
Sheila’s eyes were big and nervous. “So... you’ve spoken with Mrs. Merryweather already?”

  
“As I said,” Cersei hissed as she pulled out her pocket mirror and started applying a fresh line of crimson to her lips, slightly annoyed that she had to repeat herself twice, “I keep track of things around here.”

  
Sheila gave a sharp exhale. “That’s a relief, I mean, it’s great that you’re so calm about it, the whole Renly thing.”

  
Cersei’s heart leapt up in her throat. She whipped her head up, only marginally registering the long red line she’d accidentally dragged down her chin with the lipstick. “ _What_  Renly thing?”

  
Sheila trembled as if her superior’s voice was inflicting physical abuse on her. “Well, you know, the account… Renly was here today, you see..." The girl swallowed noisily, changing tactics midway. "I thought you said you'd spoken to Mrs. Merryweather?”

  
_No_ , Cersei thought wildly even as the girl spoke.  _No no no._  At some point she realized she must’ve started whispering it out loud because the next thing she knew Sheila was offering her a chair and some water to calm down.

  
“Would you, uh, like me to fetch you some aspirin or something?”

  
Cersei grabbed the girl’s wrist and squeezed, pouring out all of her distress into that single contact. “You little liar. It’s not true.”  _Taena would have told me._

  
“It’s true, I swear, ask everyone around. Please don’t fire me, I really need the job.” Cersei peered over her shoulder to see that most of the people in the lobby had ceased whatever work they had occupied themselves with and were now staring at the escalating scene with a barely concealed thirst for gossip in their eyes.

  
”Mrs. Lannister?” Sheila’s small voice drew back her attention. “Could you… My wrist…”

  
Cersei pried her stiff fingers open to see bloodless flowers already blooming across the skin underneath. The sight of it was too familiar, too constricting, referencing back to a single event Cersei was not allowed to remember in public. She was reminded of the marks on Joff’s body and the way she’d held on to him with her hands until she was urged to—made to—let go, forcefully dragged away so the paramedics could wrap her boy in a sickening white sheet—

  
“Where is she?” Cersei’s voice was velvet and acid, flattery and command.

  
Sheila looked up at her dully. “Who?”

  
“Mrs. Merryweather.” The name was spoken like a winter curse.

  
“I-In your office, I think. She informed us she would be working on the new…”

  
Cersei didn’t wait for the girl’s rambling to finish. She swept past her staring employees, charged into the elevator and sharpened her impeccable nails for a battle.

 

* * *

 

“Bitch. You’re fired.” Cersei barely waited for the sliding door to click shut before she hissed out the words in the most venomous tone she could muster.

  
Taena Merryweather was sitting in  _her_  chair, surrounded by stacks of  _her_  paperwork, fingers skating across a laptop that was sat in the middle of _her_  desk. The woman was wearing a white cotton shirt and a pencil black mini skirt, businesslike even without the glasses that mounted the steep bridge of her nose. The shirt covered only a small portion of her shoulders and flowed down into a delicate scoop neckline. It was a tight fit which put the focus on her breasts, but without making it look sloppy. Her arms were only covered down to the elbow, which not only helped accentuate her smooth olive skin but also kept the line of her clothes perfectly neat.

  
Six or seven years ago, it wouldn’t have stung Cersei so much to see a woman wear her clothes and her late youth so well.

  
“Calm down my love,” Taena purred in that deep Hispanic accent that made men weak at the knees. Cersei was no man and she made sure to remind Taena of it as she cracked her heels against the floor so that her steps could be heard even though the floor was carpeted and soft.

  
“Don’t tell me to calm down. Renly pulls out and you don’t fucking tell me? I was made to look like a fool in front of half my employees downstairs. Now I advise you start collecting your things before I throw them out the window along with your contract.”

  
Taena slid out of the rolling chair and rounded the wide desk, almost but not quite stepping into Cersei’s personal space. Her perfume today was sweet, heavy, and had a bit too much sex in it. Donna Karan, no doubt. Europeans were obsessed with that for some reason.

  
“Cersei, relax. Renly came in earlier today with no desire to negotiate. No one could’ve persuaded him to stay, not even you. I think it was always their intention to pull out last minute. I didn’t tell you over the phone because I didn’t want to upset you after your exhausting day at the funeral.”

  
Cersei caught Taena’s wrist before the other woman could touch her face. “Don’t presume to tell me what I could and couldn’t have done. I would've  _made_  him stay. We _needed_  him.”

  
Taena sighed. “I know we did. I tried to appeal to him, he wouldn’t listen.”

  
“So you’re an incompetent cunt as well as a liar.”

  
Taena took Cersei's hand in hers, rubbing soothing circles before lightly pressing her dark lips to the soft skin. “You’re upset. I get that. But you have to understand, Renly came here with the clear purpose of insulting us. It may be a good thing that you weren't here, C. I was afraid you might've killed him for the way he spoke about this magazine, your family, you. He...” Taena looked away. "He said you should tell your father to buy you another pastime."

  
"He had no _right_!" Cersei screamed, hating the effrontery, the hypocrisy—like Renly was one to talk. She yanked her hand from Taena and slammed it on the desk. Papers flew up, orderly files and hours' worth of work blighted in a single second, then snowed down like it was fucking Christmas, except Santa had swung by earlier and snaffled all the gifts. "We were on _contract_. He can't pull out, how did he even—he must know I'd hire a lawyer and see him ruined."

  
Taena sighed ruefully. "He claimed that _we_ 'd committed a breach of the confidentiality agreement by disclosing the state of our common funds and transaction details to Vogue representatives." Taena made an almost inelegant sound as she leaned against the ravaged desk. "We have our dear Senelle to thank for it. We thought Renly was just going off on rumors at first but he'd done his homework and marched in here with solid proof of her conversations with them. We weren't a safe place for his money, he said. Instead of launching costly shoots we should allocate more funds to keeping track of our employees, that's what he advised us, then gathered his drag queen skirts and took off."

  
Cersei hissed like a wounded cat. The smug, back-stabbing dick. _I should've been here._ But if it was as bad as Taena said, what could she have done, really? At least now she could pin some of it on her friend and keep a portion of her reputation unscathed. Although everyone knew it was the face of the outlet who always got the worst of these things in front of the press, regardless of whose fuck-up it really was. Cersei snorted. It was all Senelle's fault anyway.

  
"But that was  _Senelle,_ " she argued. She knew she was grasping at straws but she would never capitulate and wave a white flag to that complacent fool Renly. "And we fired her." How had he found out about that anyway? _He knew about it before I did._  Apparently Senelle wasn't the only rotten apple working under her. The thought of others having their ways into the inner circles of her dominion, of people that were not her friends having current knowledge about all those creases just out of her field of vision, made her blood curdle.

  
"True, but she was still our employee at the time she leaked the information, and apparently that's what counts, juridically. _Renly_  could sue _us_ , C."

  
Cersei was at a loss for words. "Can he _do_ that?"

  
Taena bit her full lip as if to lessen the impact of her own words. "I've consulted with Varys' law firm and they, uh... thought it would be best for us not press official charges. Apparently Renly has enough legal ground for breaking off the contract to hold in court."

  
“Why?” Cersei raked her brain with this single question. Why would Renly Baratheon double-cross her at the last moment, what gain was there for him?  _If this is about father refusing to make him CEO in Robert’s place…_ No, not even Renly was that vain, that featherbrained.

  
Cersei was beside herself with rage. _No one_ _would’ve_ _thought to_ _treat me like th_ _is_ _a year ago_ _._

  
She wasn’t an idiot—she knew the kind of stain a madhouse left on your name. Spend six months locked away in an asylum and suddenly people assumed you were out of fashion. Just look at this debacle that was forced on her. To have to demean herself and tremble at the face of the press. Cersei Lannister from one year ago would’ve had enough support to bounce back from a prospective scandal at any given time. But now, now her good name was hanging by a thread. Now she had to sit tight and behave.

  
Even her father, her main shareholder, had started withdrawing some of his financial support for her magazine, and she hated it, how she had to grovel at his office for every cent and prove her reliability to him twice a week. What was even worse was that he hadn’t lifted a finger to publicly endorse her return at the helm of Lioness, and of course the tabloids sensed that. Tywin Lannister might have saved her from serving jail time but he’d left her to deal with the vultures creeping around her magazine as she saw fit. It was one of the many things which kept Cersei awake at night, listening to Taena’s even breathing and envying the other woman, hating her for it. Because without the power of a successful business behind the name, you were just stripped bare for all to laugh at, notorious, fodder for tabloids, and that wouldn’t do.

  
Everyone thought they could walk all over her these days, presumed that she’d be giving up what was hers without a fight. They’d damn well guess again. She’d have to figure out a way to show them that she wasn’t broken just yet, that it would take a lot more than a bit of bad publicity to cause the downfall of Cersei Lannister…

  
Taena cleared her throat. “I think…”

  
She paused, and it came across too forced, too fake for Cersei’s liking. She was in no mood to wait and be kept waiting. “ _What?_  Out with it.”

  
“I think someone may have worked with Renly from the start. Orchestrated this whole thing to make us look bad in front of the press.”

  
Cersei narrowed her eyes. “Who?” Vogue seemed like a logical answer, though Cersei had no valid evidence in support of that theory.

  
“I don’t know.” Taena moved closer. “I'm telling you though, Renly Baratheon might be the spokesman but those sure weren't his words." The Spanish woman averted her gaze. "I hear Rose Trend have been trying to score a deal with Baratheon Fundings for months.”

  
Cersei’s eyes darkened, everything becoming clear in one instant. “Not those fucking Tyrells.”

  
Rose Trend was a fashion magazine, a rather distinguished fashion magazine in fact, property to that wretched hag Olenna Tyrell, and it was a direct competition to Lioness. From what Cersei had heard the wrinkled old cunt ruled her little kingdom with an iron fist, even now refusing to die despite her years qualifying her for a museum exposé. They were always neck to neck, she and Olenna, jockeying for power, clientele, press coverage, awards and prestige in an old and hard-fought battle.

  
Cersei should’ve known sooner. The sneaky bitch was always on the lookout to screw her over.

  
She nibbled at her nail, her manicure be damned.

  
“I’m told their next issue will feature a rather high-budget cover shoot with the editor-in-chief’s own granddaughter,” Taena went on. "Margaery. The young rose."

  
Cersei paced the room like a lioness in a cage, heels biting into the carpet, nails biting into her palm.

  
“So the little harlot’s trying to ride her granny’s doomed train, never mind the missing rails ahead when the hag croaks.”

  
Taena lifted up a champagne coupe full of margarita and delicately offered it to Cersei. Cersei shook her head. “Perhaps the train isn’t as doomed as we thought. Maybe this wasteful shoot is meant to draw more attention to the granddaughter as a potential successor for when the crone eventually bites the dirt.”

  
Cersei took her time measuring the degrees of shit they were potentially in. She caught her lip between her teeth and pressed down until she tasted iron. It had never occurred to her that the old bitch would be entrusting the quest of pushing Lioness out of the publishing business to her vile spawn.

  
“We were fools to think Olenna Tyrell wouldn’t secure her legacy.”

  
Taena nodded regretfully. “We only looked at her idiot grandson, I admit that was an oversight. What will you do?”

  
Cersei seethed. Her fingers itched to wrap themselves around the margarita glass, Taena’s throat, her fleeting power.

  
“What _can_ I do? Olenna Tyrell got what she wanted. We have no funding to do the Valentine’s Day issue justice. It’ll be mediocre, at best. If we’re creative with what little we have. Our issue is ruined and theirs will sparkle like never before. They killed two birds with a single stone.”

  
“Should I call Petyr?”

  
Cersei snorted, cursing her fate. “Don’t bother. Not even he is in a position to get us out of this mess, I’m afraid,” she lied. The truth of it was, Baelish was out of the country, negotiating something for her father with the Starks up in Canada, something she wasn't even informed about, and she wasn’t allowed to interrupt Tywin Lannister’s work no matter what, never mind the negligible fact that Baelish was technically  _her_  employee. Father had stolen him right from under her just when she needed him.

  
Taena scuttled closer, caution in her voice. “You could always ask your father for a short-term loan—”

  
Cersei swatted the Spanish woman away. “I’m  _not_  kissing his ass again. Not in this life. I will not be giving him an excuse to toss me back in a creep house, thank you very much.”

  
Her head began to spin as her headache swooped back on her, worse, stronger, and she felt Taena’s hands fly to support her moments later. “Shh, there’s another investor,” her friend was whispering soothingly in her hair. Her breath was warm and moist, and had the faintest traces of vanilla in it. “A better one.”

  
“We might hate their guts, but who’s richer than the Baratheons? Except my father, that is...” Cersei sobbed a little as she let Taena cradle her like a child.

  
“They’re a new brand, C, but they’re ready to have their big break-through, just like you were nine years ago, remember?” The Spanish woman caressed Cersei’s hair with one hand and brought the margarita to her swollen lips with the other. Cersei drank tiredly. “I’ve invited one of their high-ups over for lunch, he should be here any minute now. Just hear him out, ok? Just listen to what he has to say. I’m sure you’ll be feeling a great deal better about this whole thing once you’ve met him and seen just how alike you two are.”

  
Cersei let herself be reassured by Taena’s words, the clever glint in her eye, if just for a minute. Jaime always knew how to make the impossible, even ludicrous ideas seem plausible, almost logical. She never felt unsafe with him, even when he ranted on about running away together and living under a bridge.

  
Even if it was just for a second, she wanted this kind of security back in her life. She let Taena stroke her cheeks and kiss the corners of her lips, trace the red mark of her lipstick with her hot breath, just the hint of her tongue drifting on her skin. Cersei’s fingers nestled in those heavy cocoa curls, traveled up the Spanish woman’s scalp, pulled sharply. Taena’s vein was thrumming in her throat, buried under a thin layer of obstructive, tedious skin. Cersei's teeth scratched at the base of her friend's neck, demanding a bloody and violent entrance. 

  
She remembered the first time they did this and Taena let her take full charge of things, it being something so unfamiliar, harder work than she'd imagined but oh so worth it.

  
Cersei bit down hard into Taena’s flesh, felt the other woman squirm against her, but with no denial. She felt her up and Taena moaned, too loudly for the thickness of the wooden door that separated them from the scandalmonger beehive they'd employed. Jaime would’ve pushed her off by now, trapping her underneath his muscular body to repay her teasing in kind. Taena just wrapped her lithe limbs around Cersei’s body and whispered encouragement. Cersei groaned in frustration. Her friend was too submissive sometimes, making it an all too easy fight, an all too easy victory.

  
This wasn’t what she needed, not with Taena, at least.

  
Reality came crashing back on her like a fucking boomerang, and she roughly shoved Taena off. “Who’s this representative? Do I know him?” she asked, flipping back to her usual, passive aggressive tone as she strode over to the long wall mirror to fix her makeup.

  
Taena didn’t seem to mind being treated like a call girl and a business partner all in the span of three seconds, and smoothed her skirt over as she rose elegantly to her feet. “Kind of. Not personally. You ought to know his last name, I think.”

  
Cersei paused to apply her blush, pierced Taena with her arctic eyes through the mirror. “What were you doing in my office when I came in?”

  
Taena’s thick lips pulled into a devilish grin. “Not playing around with your dildos, don’t worry.” Cersei rolled her eyes at the poor joke. “I was hoping to take care of the inventory before you came in. I know how much you hate doing these.”

  
Cersei took a moment to examine whether she was annoyed or grateful that someone paid so much attention to her actions. She wondered if she should thank Taena for all the times she’d covered for her while she was busy with her family drama, her lawyers, or simply decided to roll down the blinds and let the wine take everything away. Through all the rough patches over the past year Taena had proved to be a valuable assistant. She'd even served as a temporary editor-in-chief while Cersei was away at a psychiatric hospital. Taena was the only one Cersei dared leave things to around here.

  
“You do know me, I suppose,” Cersei susurrated, a bit bashful, and even that felt like too much.

  
Her phone rang. Taena knew better than to ask who it was.

  
_That took you long enough_ , Cersei wanted to hiss into the phone but instead she just kept staring at it, frustrated. She had expected her brother to be angry about her leaving the funeral without telling him but she had zero fucks and apologies to give.

  
She needed from Jaime what Taena was giving her—an active support in her struggles to uproot her enemies before their claws scratched too close. But her brother preferred to do nothing, like he usually did. She wanted him to kill Tyrion, take Robert’s place, give her and his fucking children the leverage they needed. He wanted her to quit her job, be his, all that romantic nonsense, blabbering about how this city sucked her dry or some such idiocy.

  
As if he ever understood the effort she had put into building a reputation around herself. The price it tolled against her to keep it all moving. He’d never done anything by himself in his entire life, aside from his ridiculous venture into the state police department that father disapproved of. Being a cop had been the only thing her brother remotely cared for aside from her, them. He'd seemed to find some misplaced purpose amidst the bullets but even that had ended as soon as he'd lost his gun hand.

  
Now all he cared about was fucking her and spending time with her, their stolen moments intense, overwhelming and inescapably fleeting. While it felt good to immerse in those fantasies from time to time, to feel him inside her like the first time they had each other when they were teenagers, Cersei needed him to be more than that, something her brother had a problem with. Because deep down Jaime was still the hopeless teenager who’d dropped down on one knee before her during senior prom and asked her to run away with him and marry him. Cersei had no use for that teenager anymore.

  
They hadn’t even fucked in ages. Ironically, Taena had seen more of her naked ass these past couple of months than her brother. Cersei wondered if her twin would ever grasp that one thing led to the other with her and he couldn’t simply ask to be in her life with one foot and out with the other. It wasn’t on the menu, not anymore, that wasn't how things worked now. Ever since Joff’s death, the rules had changed. Taena seemed to get it. And if her brother refused to follow suit then he could get a castration for all she cared.

  
Cersei cleared her screen without answering.

  
She arched an expectant, sharply trimmed eyebrow as she looked at her friend over the paper town sprawled on her desk, the particularly massive pile she’d started sorting through in her fury, a bit mindlessly. “Well? Who is this mystery man we're meeting or do I have to really fire you before you get around to telling me?”

  
Taena smirked knowingly as she made the announcement.

  
“Greyjoy. We’ll be having lunch with Mr. Euron Greyjoy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Needless to say that took longer than expected. Fortunately I am young and have time on my side so if I keep at it I should have the whole thing wrapped up around 2050, yes? *grins apologetically* Sorry. 
> 
> In defense of any and all inaccuracies regarding the legal aspect of a proper working relationship between an investor and a private company—I'm an exceptionally lazy writer who hasn't done her research and likes to make things up to stuff the plot wall.
> 
> Cersei chapters are the best chapters to write because I don't have to be consistent with anything!


	3. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is an unhinged sister gone missing, and a cripple haunted by everyone's ghosts navigates a family-friendly funeral.

III.

  
Cersei was mad again. That was her default state these days. Either that or colder than the fucking Antarctic. No damn toggle.

  
He’d probably said something, or done something, but he’d be damned if he knew what. All he knew was, the funeral fare was still going strong, upscale suits and designer dresses swishing aimlessly to the aria of plastic laughter, and his sister, their son and the limo were nowhere to be seen.

  
She'd probably stormed off after Tyrion—poor clueless bastard—waltzed in on their little argument earlier. Jaime had tried chasing her down the corridor afterwards, she'd threatened to throw a shoe at him. The last he’d seen before she'd disappeared round the corner was her giving him the finger, then she'd swirled her perfect ass and stomped off to the clank of her monstrous ten-inch mountaineering godzilla shoes, and that was it. 

  
Jaime grunted, remembering their final exchange. He still wasn’t sure what to make of it all. Apparently that fuck Stannis was blaming them for old Arryn’s death. As if anything but pneumonia would bother with the boring little man. Or so he’d thought. A screwed bolt was looser than Stannis but he didn’t have the reputation of a man who blamed people for the fun of it. He’d asked Cersei if she’d had a hand in it, she had denied. Jaime didn’t even know anymore. More people had died at his sister’s hands these past two years than he’d seen murdered on the streets.

  
_Shit, Cersei. Shit._

  
Curses seemed to form easier than love professions these days when it came to his dear sister. But then again—when had it ever been different? It was never easy with her. Easy was not part of the package you got with fucking your twin sister. Even less so when you had been in love with her since before you knew how to spell your own name.

  
Things had been bad between them, ever since she got out of that godawful clinic in the middle of New Jersey, all thumbs and vindictive and just so fucking _unmanageable_  damn near all the time. Jaime had wanted to gut every member of the medical staff like an otter for what they’d done to her.  _She needed all the help she could get_ _._ That was the only reason he'd stood and watched as their father dispatched her from one mental wellness freak house to another.

  
Christ, the way she’d looked. She’d lost half her weight, most of her hair and two front teeth. She'd always been obsessed with appearances but she'd rushed to meet him barefoot and bruised that day. Her wan face had trotted an almost junkie-like look, deep half-circles creeping under her disoriented eyes. Her skin had been whiter than the restraining jacket they’d only conceded to wiggle her out of after her personal psychiatrist Qyburn had signed the formal paperwork. Her luxurious golden curls had been chopped sloppily and rearranged into a matted copper mess that barely crept down to her jaw line.

  
She’d tossed herself in his arms straight away, sobbing in a very unCersei-like display of emotion, beating against his chest like a little girl, reprimanding him even as she shook and cried.  _Don’t leave me, J. Never let them drag me to this place again._

  
He’d held her tight on the plane back from Jersey, humming gently in the crown of her head. Then they’d arrived back home, and her sobs had subsided, and the animosity had rolled back in. She didn't need a knight in shining armor, she'd said. She needed him to get _involved_. Whatever the fuck that meant. Nothing was in its rightful place since that day. Things had only been going downhill since that damnable Sunday afternoon, a fucking nebula of disagreements and complications, cans of worms and quagmires, pushing and pulling.  

  
She’d come out a different kind of damaged. If anything, her treatment had made her all the angrier.

  
She didn’t just blame Tyrion for Joff’s death these days (although she still blamed him plenty). She blamed  _everyone_ , from the cleaning lady she’d assaulted for trying to wipe Joff’s bracelet with a rag to the hairdresser she’d gotten fired because he’d apparently made Tommen’s haircut look just like Joff’s. ( _I swear to God, J, just like his, he fucking did that on purpose._ ) Jaime had made sure these kinds of slips stayed well out of their father’s earshot, for fear that he might send her away again, this time somewhere even more isolated and remote, but he knew it was only a matter of time before she tried to claw out the eyes of some poor close-ranged personnel while he wasn’t around to prevent it.

  
He wasn't even sure Cersei realized any of it. It was all about fashion with here these days. Wear this, sell that, never talk about the fucking children. Jaime could only sit and watch her slip away, bit by dreadful bit. Immediately reassuming her duties as editor-in-chief of that dratted magazine had not helped her sanity much. That place corroded her like red rust, but she needed it and the sense of power it gave her like a junky might crave a drug. Power was her fix when it should be him, Jaime, her twin who made her worries go away.

  
She was too deep in her own shit to care about the two of them anymore. Her negligence was maddening. It was scary, how she could still drive him nuts with just a few words, or even with silence. _Especially_ with silence. There were days when he longed to shove his stump in her face and give her a piece of his mind, bare his teeth down at her and tell her he’d rather not have tried rescuing the boy at all. (What good had it done anyway?) 

  
Perhaps she'd slap him. Perhaps she'd finally fuck him. Anything was better than those missed calls.

  
That was the problem with his dear sister. She'd always sent some mixed signals but lately she was worse than a fucking radiator. Everything about her was sexy, fierce, sharp, and as fickle as a damn Hollywood commercial. They were always fighting over something, something stupid and insignificant that she insisted mattered enough to waste minutes of their trysts. At least before he'd always made sure to have her under him at the end of it all, and that was what ultimately made the cut. But recently...  

  
Jaime supposed the fact that he was stuck in an empty hallway at Robert Baratheon's funeral, dialing his sister’s number and debating whether she was alive or murdering someone was telling enough.

  
And now his dear sister couldn't be bothered to pick up her damned phone to let him know she wasn't locked up in her apartment dying from medical drugs abuse, like the last time she'd ignored his calls. Of course the time before that she'd been at a bar with her slut friend, the Spanish woman with the fake breasts, wiggling her ass in front of a bartender. Jaime had to drag her out of the perimeter heels first slung over his arm, struggling to remain unaffected as she tried to give him a drunken suck-off in the car for old days' sake, him swallowing hard around the lump in his throat when bile rose quicker than his dick and she puked all over the leather upholstery of his silver Aston Martin.

  
She'd been sweetness incarnate the next morning, she always was when she wanted something from him, smiling up at him and nibbling playfully at his fingers as he reluctantly slid one of those oval pearly pills she loved so much, the ones that Qyburn freak insisted didn't compromise her main treatment, between her swollen lips. He preferred fucking to talking and her apologies were always worthwhile, so when she reached for him, he'd complied. Midway through she'd purred something about tampering with Tyrion's drink and his gut turned all over again. She'd blamed everything on him once again, on his love for Tyrion, his lack of spine, his missing hand. 

  
For all the humiliating rehab procedures, these were moments that really felt like a punch in the gut. When he felt useless to Cersei and Tyrion. Because two years ago Jaime would’ve knocked any prick’s teeth out for gawking at his sister the way that guy had the previous night. Arrested him, if he was being a particular douche. No more of that. Without his badge and his gun and his good hand, all it’d taken was a couple of drunken rockers that were a tad too eager for Cersei’s attention and a snarl on his sister's part to have him stranded in a hospital bed with a broken rib, an awry, purple nose and a concussion. It had been one of the first times it would dawn on him that he was a sad and sorry mess now, a shadow of his former self. Tyrion would never know what he might’ve prevented by sitting around in his brother’s infirmary room, making stupid comments about the food and torturing the nurses with his horrible boob jokes…

  
Jaime hadn’t tried punching any more men for being flirty with his sister since then. These days he mostly just settled for schlepping a cross-eyed, stumbling Cersei out of whatever seedy dump he discovered her in, carrying her bridal style—ah, the  _irony_  —or, when he was in a rush, throwing her over his shoulder as she attempted to fight him in her drunken state, resisting the urge to clamp his good hand over her mouth whenever she started muttering about some three-way she’d promised Taena Merrywheather. 

 

His lack of forcefulness seemed to annoy Cersei somehow, even though she always used to scream and thrash and swear at him whenever he handcuffed her and escorted her out of any questionable establishment. (He often wondered what kind of headline they’d make if the paparazzi ever caught them in a compromising position like that, but Cersei always did her homework and went to places that were seemingly untraceable to the press.)

  
Ah, good days. They used to fight a lot then, too. It didn't matter. They were free to be teenagers all over again, those nights he’d pluck her from trashy clubs, spur-of-the-moment and unsolicited and without a last name to worry about. Sometimes she’d be so eager they’d end up doing it all over the hood of his car.

  
It'd been years since they last fucked anyplace but his basement. He'd gotten lazier, she'd gotten more cautious.

  
Jaime suppressed a sigh that would have been too nostalgic, too beat, only adding to the patheticness of his situation.

  
His father’s authoritative voice carried down from the adjacent room, praising Robert’s impeccable business instincts or something equally absurd. Jaime shook his head. The only thing the fat asshole had been able to sense in a ten-mile radius was a hors d’oeuvre of silicone and cheap perfume served on high heels; anything to disrespect his sister. Cersei would’ve snorted to high heaven if she was there to hear just how far up Robert’s dead ass everyone had their heads, and he’d have to calm her down before she went and did something stupid—again.

  
Jaime cleared the screen of his phone. Rolled it between his thumb and index, then dialed her number once more. At least she'd be here, not off getting herself tangled up in more shit than she could handle. If only _—_

  
_The number you’ve dialed does not answer. Please try again later. The number you’ve dialed does not answer. Please try again—_

  
Jaime leaned his head back against the cold wall, muttering a low curse as he gave up trying to get through to his sister.

  
Looked like Cersei was lost for the afternoon.

  
His good hand dropped to his side, barely clutching the phone, not caring if the damn thing fell to the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces. Who was there to call besides Cersei?

  
His phone buzzed. His hand shot up instinctively, although he knew the odds of his sister actually _calling_ him were about as good as him growing another hand.

  
_PARTNER_

  
He’d never gotten round to updating the names of his damn contacts. It stung every time he read it, stupidly, still.

  
He was tempted to drop the phone on purpose, or just let it ring forever. Tarth would disapprove, of course, bark out that he had plenty of friends down at the station, that he was being a sulker and a slacker and finding excuses again. He didn't give two shits. The big cow could do the job for the both of them just fine. He'd text her to fuck off but there was only so much you could do with dyslexia and five good fingers.

  
He picked up, slumping against the wall. “What do you want?”

  
“You know perfectly well what I want," came the familiar, hardline voice from the other end. "The same I’ve wanted for the past year and a half. I want you to quit being a rich jerk and reassume your duty—“

  
“I’m a rich jerk? Have you met the rest of my family?”

  
“Your family’s overall degeneracy does not give you an excuse to bail out of your job.”

  
“Well that’s certainly news. There I was thinking it gave me plenty of excuse to do anything. Seeing as my Daddy owns the station and about every ass in it, including yours.”

  
“I suppose your family's prickliness has started rubbing off on you.”

  
“I'd answer that but surprisingly enough, I don't want to have a fight, Tarth."

  
"What _do_ you want? It's been almost two years, Jaime. You've had plenty of time to recuperate. That's more than most people can say for themselves, more than many ever get. Do you realize how _lucky_ you are?" Jaime snorted at the absurdity of it—being lectured on life by a woman whose world was reduced to the good guys, the bad guys and the just guys. "You _are_  a lucky man, Jaime Lannister. If a horribly entitled one. Why do you keep acting like your life is over?"

  
" _Am_ I acting like my life is over? I hadn't noticed. I guess I've been slightly preoccupied with my brother and sister's murder charges, oh and my oddly flat wrist. Truth be told I thought I was only acting like my _cop_ life was over. Because it fucking is. And I suppose I'm doing it in hopes that you'll finally get the memo and stop fucking calling. But you keep persisting like this horsefly gene runs in your family or something, and it's fucking annoying, has anyone ever told you that?" 

  
"Has anyone ever told _you_ that you should be grateful to have people in your life who would still make the effort to call you once every week after two years of being completely shut out?"

  
"So I'm suffering from a case of the chronic ex-partner. Hurray.”

  
“You want to be impossible? Fine. But I have spent the last twenty months doing a two-person job all by myself because of you, and I am not amused.”

  
“Hold it right there, sister. Whoever banned you from getting a new partner? As far as I recall you’ve been, rather tenaciously if I might add, either turning down or scaring away every new guy that's shown up on your doorstep. Or was that your love life? I mix those up a lot.”

  
There was a pause. He could sense the press of her lips, the solemn groove between her knotted eyebrows.

  
“You lost a hand. It’s a thoroughly traumatizing experience, I understand that. But you haven’t lost your life and I hate that you’re so bloody determined to ignore that. I have been very patient, and I have been _willing_ to be there for you through your hardships.” The rare hurt in her voice almost made him curse at her. Apologize to her. Something. She cleared her throat. Her voice dropped back to her usual, dully professional tone. “Now I’ve had it with your ascetic, self-pitying episodes. We _must_ go on. You’ve sworn an oath, Jaime Lannister, and you’ve made me a promise. Partners. Now be the man I know you can be, the one you hate to be because it disables you from being a spoilt, apathetic asshole, and do the right thing. We’ve seen so much that is not right out on the streets, we’ve seen it together, and we’ve dealt with it as a team. I want us to do our share again. I want my partner back.”

  
Jaime felt his jaw tighten, unshaved cheeks flexed into hollowness. The damn cow was too hardheaded for her own good. 

  
“Were you just _born_ , or are you plain stupid? Cripples don’t generally get assigned to deal out justice.”

  
“You don’t have to be out in the field like a bloody bullet magnet to do good. You could always accept that lieutenant promotion. We both know Dayne’s been trying to sway you for years.”

  
Jaime brought his stump to his chest; beat dramatically where his heart was buried even though she could not see. “Oh. Wait.”

  
“What?”

  
“I… I think I’ve just had _massive_ revelation. Yeah, sure, that’s what I'm going to do. I’ll be a lieutenant. I’ll sit behind a desk all day, look at case files I can no longer investigate, maybe even order in a cheese burger or two. I might not have the longest arm in the station anymore but I sure as hell can acquire the fattest ass.”

  
Tarth half-sighed, half-growled. Annoyance crept in her voice as she cut him off. “You know my father always said that if you have nothing of value to contribute, you should just shut up.”

  
“We’re having a conversation,” Jaime cut her off in kind. “I’m making some valid points here. Perhaps I can even sign some governmental papers, yes! Oh wait. Can’t do that, either. Being an amputee and all. Jeez, partner, I guess your plan has a couple of cracks in it.”

  
A loud thud rippled through the earpiece, causing Jaime to cringe and move the phone slightly away from his ear. He couldn’t help the grin from scrunching the corners of his eyes, imagining his ex-partner kicking a dent in her desk like a gorilla. “Nine years ago, you took the job. You swore an oath.”

  
_And held my right fist to my heart as I did._ “Yeah, well, I also told fat Walda she should try herself at the cheerleaders' auditions. Words aren’t worth a great deal these days, are they?”

  
There was a pause. “You're a coward, Jaime Lannister. You have your comfortable life and your father's bank accounts, and you let yourself forget about all about justice. You choose to be a materialistic craven, fine. But _don’t_ mock what we are.” Her version of a coarse language caught him off guard. Tarth’s whole face could pass for an insult in itself, but she wasn’t usually the verbally abusive type. She preferred butting heads to spewing insults. That much they had in common.

  
The line cracked and quivered. From the other side, he could hear that Tarth’s breathing was heavy and riled.

  
Jaime’s grin faded. He pressed the phone back to his cheek, parted his dry lips to utter in the most genuine tone he could muster, “There’s no ‘we’, Brienne. I’m nothing you are. We’re worlds apart, and not just because I’m a cripple and you can't turn a blind eye to shit to save your life. It was fun beating up little drug lords and putting handcuffs on people and waving our guns around, but let’s be real. A spoiled, one-handed rich jerk and a justice-obsessed dumb bodybuilder… Just wasn’t meant to be.”

 

* * *

 

  
The old lion was standing tall and mighty, making the corner he occupied feel like the geometrical center of the room. He owned the hall through his commanding presence alone, without so much as saying a word.

  
Black structured suit, golden hair and impeccably groomed whiskers, he might’ve been forty if it wasn’t for the single deep furrow that grid his forehead like a surgical incision. That and his thirty-something sons that wandered about the hallways like lost sheep.

  
Jaime stepped into the circle of ass-kissers that seemed to surround his father like an orbit at any given time. Perfumy clothes swished past him, making him crinkle his nose. Faces that meant nothing to him smiled and flirted as they politely excused themselves from the upcoming father-son parley.

  
“You called for me.” _Your father would like to see you in the main hall_ , whispered by a caterer that was so obviously gay it made Mercury seem almost straight. It was always a caterer, or an assistant, or some other form of personnel. Never Dad. The elder lion never came to any of his children to talk, no, _they_ always waited on _him_. That was how things worked. It was a time-old system that never seemed to grow obsolete.

  
“I did.”

  
Unlike his children, their father had never lost his British accent. Their uncles speculated that it made him sound more imperial, though Tyrion insisted it just made him come across like a pompous ass. Jaime tended to agree with the latter. Even though his sister had initially agreed that it was ridiculous to be in L.A. and not talk like an American— _if you’re in L.A., you have to_ be _L.A., right?_ she’d whispered once—Jaime couldn’t help noticing how she suddenly switched to her best imitation of Dad’s voice during her conference meetings. (Not even her care-free southern lass accent. No. Just Dad’s voice.)  

  
“What for?” Jaime wasn’t in the mood for anything but the bare minimum.

  
Tywin Lannister eyed his son in the most dispassionate manner imaginable. “I have a job proposition for you.”

  
_No_ , Jaime thought. _Not you too._ Taking that same crap from Cersei all day long was bad enough. Now he had to stand and listen to Dad try to feed it to him too, if from a slightly different spoon? There were days when Jaime Lannister positively hated his life. “There’s a line of nabobs and kingpins waiting for you to give them a nod and you want _me_ to take over? I’m not a businessman or a politician.”

  
“No. You’re not. But I have raised you to be one. You have wasted your life until now, and I have allowed it. I stood by and watched you play out your fantasies for justice. I witnessed you grow into a tabloid stamp bachelor. It is past time you were of some use to this family.”

  
“I am being of use to the family,” Jaime rumbled. “I’m taking care of Cersei. Your daughter, remember?”

  
His father just kept measuring him with a cold look of appraisal, face as unreadable as a face could get. “Only too well. Your sister has a score of first-class therapists and psychiatrists to aid her with whatever difficulties she might experience.”

  
“She doesn’t need _shrinks_ , Dad, she needs family.”

  
“Using your sister’s frail mental state as an excuse to not participate in family affairs is impermissible. You are my son. Things are changing and I need a Lannister at the helm again.”

  
“Offer the position to Tyrion, then. He’ll do a far better job than I ever could.”

  
“Be serious. I’m surprised that you would still seek after his company considering what he did to you but how you choose to occupy yourself in your spare time is no concern of mine.”

  
Jaime bristled. “It wasn’t his fault.”

  
“Finding excuses for him is unhealthy but you may continue to do so if it makes it easier for you. As it stands your brother may have done you a favor by ridding you of your hand. This law enforcement escapade of yours was stretching out beyond all reasonable proportions as it was.”

  
Jaime’s good hand fisted his vest, hard enough to tear. He bit down on his lip, working open old wounds. Counted to five just like Cersei always instructed him to do before he made a risky statement to father.  _And if it hasn’t worn away till then, just shut up altogether, you hear me, J?_   _You don’t talk back to father._  “It wasn’t an _escapade_. And it wasn’t Tyrion’s fault.”

  
“I have not asked you here to quibble over small matters such as your brother’s alleged innocence. The state court already had the final say in that. I’ve asked you here because I need my _son_ to do his part for the family business.”

  
“Tyrion _is_ your son.”

  
Tywin Lannister pressed his bloodless lips into a line that was thin enough to cut. “The chief executive is the highest-ranking position in all of Lannister Inc. It is crucial to the business’ welfare and prosperity, and false steps will _not_ be sanctioned. I turned down both of Robert’s brothers and Walder Frey all in the span of an afternoon. I am not about to hand over a job that will carry the Lannister name—the family’s _future_ —to a drunken, lecherous little beast who killed your mother and my grandson, be it by mistake or design.”

  
Jaime lost his cool. “Of course he didn’t do it on purpose. Are you nuts to blame him for that?”

  
If Jaime didn’t know better he would've sworn they’d just increased the air conditioning in the room. “Lower your voice. There are people staring at us.”

  
“I’m not your errand boy, Dad. Never was, never will be.”

  
A man in a fitted suit closed in, clutching some papers. Jaime watched as his father took them without a word or so much as a look at the delivery person. Then he extended the filing to his son. Jaime surveyed it with undisguised suspicion. “What’s that?”

  
“It’s your sister’s release papers, from the mental clinic. They think she’s stable enough to cease all therapy. And the second half is her discharge notification from the shareholders of Lioness. Both need my signature to be enacted.”

  
Jaime stared at his father in dismay. “Why would she get fired?”

  
“There have been… complaints. Complaints I could either ignore or acknowledge. Your pick.”

  
Jaime gritted his teeth. “I guess that’s where you say Santa only drops one gift per kid and you can only sign one of the two, right? She only gets to stay in charge if her file’s clean, and her file’s clean when you sign the nuthouse release papers.”

  
“Nonsense. I said it was your pick. You can choose to have me sign both, or none. I’m told you find her current occupation detrimental for her psyche. I’ll do as you think best…”

  
“…so long as I take the job,” Jaime finished for him.

  
“That is correct.” Simple as that. Didn’t even try to dance around it, the fact that he was gambling with his daughter’s whole life like it was nothing; a chess piece. Jaime's stomach turned. His relatives had that particular effect on him, lately.

  
He snatched the papers from his father as deftly as his limited options allowed. His head pounded. Be Dad’s pawn. Take Cersei off her fashion drugs. Protect Tyrion from Dad. Protect Tyrion from Cersei. Protect Cersei from Cersei. Everyone wanted something different from him, everyone cared only for their own shit and couldn’t be bothered to look beyond it. They’d never be satisfied until they pulled him in a thousand directions and tore him limb from limb.

  
“Why the hell are you doing this to me?”

  
“Didn’t you say yourself you wanted to take care of your sister? So here is your chance. Take care of her. And take care of the family.”

  
Jaime looked up from the jumbled words that were scattered across the papers, meaningless. Held the old lion’s gaze. He wondered if that was the passive disapproval Cersei and Tyrion always went on about, the thing that had both his siblings lower their heads and all but mewl like kittens whenever their father entered the room. It pressed him down like a flatiron, but it only made him more determined not to buckle under it. He wouldn't be doing Cersei any favors by becoming what she and their father wanted him to. He certainly wouldn't be helping Tyrion, either.  _That’s for Cersei, and for Tyrion too._ All of them had suffered long enough at the hands of Tywin Lannister’s eccentric ambitions. 

  
_To hell with you, Dad_ , Jaime thought.

  
“To hell with you, Dad,” he said, rallying the cop inside him back to life for a second. “To hell with your game plans.”

  
Then he mashed the papers with his good hand, pitched them towards the nearest trash can like a baseball (it hit), and walked away.

 

* * *

 

  
He needed Tyrion. Cersei, their father, that loyal cow… Whenever Jaime grew sick of it all, he knew he could always count on his baby brother to provide some witty remark and make their shared misery sound awfully funny.

  
He found his brother standing by Robert’s coffin, just where he’d last caught sight of Cersei with her youngest kid a couple of hours ago. The contrast between Tyrion’s tiny built and Cersei’s looming form on the dais, clad in her jade halter dress, exuding a certain predatory emanation that unsettled his guts, was stark enough to have Jaime blink the images away.

  
The dull echo of their father’s magisterial voice wafted in from the neighboring hall as he delivered what was most likely a memorial speech for Robert. Cersei was supposed to be giving that, actually, but she’d explicitly refused to speak ‘on behalf of the dead oaf’, and given the history of the marriage, not even Tywin Lannister had dared push any of those particular buttons.

  
As luck would have it, most of the concourse followed Tywin Lannister like sheep around the rooms, with little thought of anything other than finding their way up the great lion’s crack. ( _If he jumps out a window I swear half of that herd will jump as well_ , Tyrion had joked as early as this morning.) That meant Jaime and his brother found themselves standing in an empty hall, save for a couple of sweeping caterers, and of course, Robert. Even from inside that coffin, his presence was still audible between the two of them, falling thick like a curtain, turning the air foul.  _He’s dead_ , Jaime told himself.  _It’s done._

  
It didn’t feel like a closure. Not the good kind, at least.

  
Jaime moved to stand by his brother, joining him in observing the obnoxious corpse of the man who—or rather, whose money and position—had stood between him and Cersei all these years.

  
"She's gone," he told his brother. He didn't need to specify. Her unspoken presence was looming over them both at all times. "You can relax."

  
“Now that's what I call a family-friendly funeral," Tyrion murmured, scratching his head. "Did she enjoy the smell of dead husbands as much as she hated the smell of me?”

  
“He should’ve died two ago, she said.” Jaime sighed, betraying more tiredness than he’d meant to. His own words startled him. Had it really been that long since they put Joff in the ground? Since he heard a genuine laughter from Tyrion? Since he last held a gun in his grip without fearing he’d blow off his damned toe?  

  
“Two years, huh.” Tyrion whistled. “Two years is a long time.” That Jaime could agree with. 

  
_It’s not right, Jaime,_ his sister’s words rang in his head _._ He felt weird, torn between his siblings’ voices, as if he was their battle arena or their damn Walkie Talkie. _Joff died and that stubborn letch of a man got to live for another two years,_ _J, two whole years._ Jaime couldn’t see the relation between the two for the life of him. It wasn’t like Robert’s life had drawn from the boy’s death. _If that death fucked anyone’s life, it’s ours._

  
“She’d be in prison though, our sister," Tyrion was saying. "You tolerated her getting a husband. I imagine you wouldn’t just sit around while she got a wife too.”

  
The joke was a bit too flat to exactly fly. 

  
“What were you thinking, Tyr?” Jaime asked softly, ignoring his brother’s light tone for once. “Approaching her like that.”

  
Tyrion chuckled. It was that bitter, disturbed snicker that always made pity surge through Jaime like a razor, although he knew it wasn’t what his little brother was gunning for. “I don’t know. I wasn’t. What would Daddy have to say about that, huh? A Lannister acting without playing out at least five of the most likely possibilities in his head first. I don’t know,” Tyrion repeated. He leaned against the coffin, eyes going dark in the most honest of ways. Jaime admired his brother for having the balls to show his disrespect for Robert out in the open like that. He seemed to be the only one. “I guess… I guess letting her prowl about like some macabre personification of the Black Widow just seemed _wrong_ , at the time _._ ”

  
Jaime grinned, though the amusement somehow dissolved into concern before it reached his eyes. He tried a more light-hearted vein. “She was holding a fork, you know. We both know what happens when she gets her hands on a utensil of any kind and gets crept up on by someone she doesn’t like. At a _funeral_.”

  
“Yes, yes, I get your point." Jaime watched his brother wave his little hand dismissively, fighting the empathy he felt for him, an empathy that threatened to spill into a full-blown hug. . "Clearly I see things differently now.”

  
“It was still a stupid move to make, baby brother. I’m supposed to be the impulsive one, remember? Dad’s already pissed as fuck that he’s had to keep this career guy version of me on life support all by himself for the past thirty years. Don’t go around taking over my other, actual version as well.” They both grinned at one another, lifelong pain and disappointment peering through the cracks between their perfect Lannister teeth. “Besides, other than endangering your own life, you sort of put _me_ at a disadvantage there as well, little bro. I would’ve had to twist her arm one-handed, you know, if she came at you. Not nice to make a cripple do these things.”

  
Tyrion smiled sadly. “That might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever almost done for me.”

  
A warm silence settled between them. Jaime wondered how long it’d been since he’d last had a comfortable silence with anyone. Probably before his accident. His last comfortable silence with Cersei—certainly long before that.

  
The plangent strains of _Behind Blue Eyes_ cut through the quiescence like nails on a board. Tyrion answered Jaime’s questioning look with an apologetic grin. “It’s a personal joke.”

  
Jaime shrugged. “What isn’t?”

  
Tyrion peered into the screen of his phone, blinking. “Well that’s odd.”

  
“What is?”

  
“It’s Bronn.”

  
Jaime frowned. Bronn was possibly the most corrupt cop in L.A., which was saying a lot. He worked as Tyrion’s hit man slash bodyguard these days. Jaime remembered collaborating with the man on a murder case once. The guy had been transferred from Vice to aid the Homicide department when a junkie whore had apparently decided to X-out her former dealer. Jaime didn’t remember much of anything as far as the man went, past the sharp tongue and the slack moralities.

  
“Why the hell is Bronn texting you in the middle of the day?”

  
Tyrion’s malformed fingers tapped in a quick sequence across the flat display.

  
“Well fuck me.”

  
Jaime craned his neck to get a better view of what was going on on Tyrion’s screen. “What is it?”

  
“Jaime, I have some news, but you’ve got to promise you’ll keep cool.”

  
Jaime immediately went into alert mode. “Fuck cool. Is it Cersei? Is she alright?”

  
“It’s not Cersei. It’s… It’s your partner. Ex-partner. She’s had an incident during a manhunt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Jaime. Our beloved martyr of Lannister. Why must thou pay for everybody's shitty shitty sins? 
> 
> Attention, Jaime x Brienne shippers. You're at the wrong place. This pirate ship knows no captain but Sir Twincest of Casterly Rock. Only lions bed each other here on my watch. Abandon ship (pun intended) or bend the knee to the Jaime x Cersei mothership and its tragic but oh so beautiful (and love triangle free) fate. (Well except maybe Taena...) (And formerly Lancel...) (Possibly Euron...) (Um) (Cersei is a slutty slut, ok?) (JxC forever in the mean time)


	4. Cersei II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a fashion diva falls down hard, a Canadian Mona Lisa is not welcome, and the second contender is introduced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said Sansa would be thirteen in this? I lied. Not on purpose, clearly, but I lied nonetheless. She'll be sixteen. Also, keep in mind that the Sansa we're starting off with is book one level of dumb, so bear with me. She'll grow into her own arc as we progress. Half the point of having her is developing her. Especially since I'm no fan of how they've handled her growth on the show. That's when a certain thing called fanfiction comes in handy, I suppose. Fixing canon as you please.

IV.

  

Cersei sat like a sculpture in her chair, sipping her drink. Vodka on ice, the no hard alcohol at work policy be damned. She was a Lannister. Her father could buy the world. She was equipped to break her own rules.

 

She glimmed up and down at the thing Taena had shoved in front of her. Shards of lukewarmness spilled from her fern eyes down to her lips, dragging the blood red corners downwards.

 

The girl was hideous. She had the face of a fifth grader, hair the tinge of habanero, and a long flat body that was as curvy as a popsicle stick. Jesus, her stand. From the Disney princess lip glow to the ill-advised jeans skirt and baby doll shirt combination, she was a testament to everything Cersei’s magazine was fighting to bar from everyday wear standards. The crowning touch had to be the ribbon, though. An actual, pink ribbon sitting neatly at the girl’s clavicle, like it was the most natural thing in the world for it to be there. It was like watching Dorothy take fashion lessons from a very competent grease monkey. Cersei briefly wondered what kind of agency would ever bother to hire her. Starbucks, maybe. The girl was so country she might as well be carrying a banjo.  

 

To tell the truth, Cersei wasn’t overly bothered by any of it. All fashion disasters were fixable, and besides, she needed a shadow that wasn’t offensive to the eye, not a fucking Monroe. What bothered Cersei was that there was beauty hidden underneath it all, an actual, classical beauty that just begged to be exposed and soft sold to the world. It made the girl something of a threat, and Cersei didn’t like to feel threatened.

 

Cersei tapped her finger against the hollow of her glass, manicured nail singing hostility. “Does it talk?”

 

Taena smiled thinly. “To the best of my knowledge.”

 

Cersei pinned the girl to the opposite wall with her wintry gaze. “Talk, girl. I have an important meeting to attend. Why do I want to hire you? Ten words.”

 

The girl clutched her resume file to her chest like a life shield. Taena pushed her forward encouragingly. “I… I’ve always wanted to be a fashion model,” the young thing blurted out. Such a small voice. Everything about it screamed polite, Christian, and stereotyped.

 

Cersei’s smile was knifelike. “How very original of you, sweetheart. At least you have a general sense of things. Or someone’s bothered to explain it to you very slowly. It’s true that my assistants, the ones who are good and useful to me, they have a bright future on the runway. Do you know what makes a good assistant?” 

 

“Loyalty?” the girl tried.

 

Cersei downed her vodka, eyes never leaving those pale blue pools of vulnerability that were peering at her like she was the judge of life and death. “Where does loyalty stem from?”

 

“From… the heart?”

 

Cersei snapped, barely resisting the urge to fan the girl’s stupidity off herself. She spun in her chair, addressing Taena, “Dear lord. How do I work with that?” When her friend just mouthed a _be patient_ and smiled her most winning smile, Cersei sighed and focused her attention back on the sweet ignorant thing, looking for something, anything noteworthy to grab on to.

 

“I’m familiar with the look in your eyes. Do you admire me, girl?” Ginger nodded hesitantly. “You want to be like me?” Another nod, this time more enthusiastic. “You want to _be_ me?”

 

Hesitance laced with the first traits of fear swirled between those knotted, horribly clipped carroty eyebrows. “Miss Lannister…” 

 

“You should know that you absolutely cannot do that. Not only because I would never allow it. But because you’re not cut out for it. You probably won’t be halfway up the ladder when the piranhas at the bottom swallow you whole. I don’t need a shark but I have no use for plankton either. You're a good little girl, aren't you? Fashion has no tolerance for girls like you. You need to make your peace with that.”

 

Cersei paused when the girl’s jaw threatened to dislocate and crack her lovely floors. She sighed, then went on in a slightly less cutting tone. “You seem like a mellow girl to me, so listen up very carefully. I would like to give you some womanly advice before you pit-a-pat away from here, something to carry with you onwards in your life. Your introduction is your gift wrap. It should be prettier than what you have to offer on the inside. The next time you try to get hired, open with something clever that you have rehearsed in advance, something that won’t make your potential employer want to strangle you on that atrocious ribbon of yours.” Ignoring the horrified look that crossed the dove’s face as her eyes descended to the salmon accessory at the base of her throat, Cersei turned towards Taena, eyes cold. “Next.”

 

Taena scuttled closer, leaning in to whisper urgently, “Hold on, my love.”

 

Cersei hissed, pushing herself out of the rolling chair and dragging her friend by the elbow to the neutral zone of the broad French window. “I don’t know what you thought I’d see in her but you were mistaken," she whispered sharply. "Now don’t make me waste another instant of my life on this. Tell it to pack up and go home to the family rancho or wherever it lives.”

 

Taena dared to smirk. “That would be Vancouver. The rancho being Stark estate.”

 

Cersei cast a surprised glance over at the fretting creature in the middle of her office. “This? A Stark?” She paused, thinking it over. “I suppose it makes perfect sense.”

 

Taena nodded slyly. “To the last bit. I wanted you to see her first, she's competent, I promise you, but I think she's just a little intimidated by talking to a fashion diva." Taena laughed sultrily. "I can relate to her. I stood before you in this same office too, once. You make funny things with people's stomachs."

 

Cersei ignored her friend's low-key brown nosing. "You've tested her?"

 

"I have. She's a little mousy but she's read every issue of our magazine and I swear she knows more about Coco Chanel than Coco Chanel. Her name is Sansa, by the way. She is the eldest daughter.”

 

“I don’t care about her name. Why is she even here? Ned Stark watches over his flock like a turtledove. I haven’t heard of a Stark crossing the border in five years.”

 

“Petyr brought her from his last trip. Our little missy _begged_ to be taken away from her boring life and into the city of angels. Apparently Daddy Stark wasn’t too keen on the idea at first. L.A. would damage his little girl, he feared. Petyr managed to convince the family that it was for the best though. Promised she would be safe with him and Robert, and you know how Cate will trust any bullshit he feeds her. Perhaps your husband’s death has given us an opportunity to make something of this situation. As it stands, nothing is keeping our little mermaid here. If we don’t act quickly, they’ll ship her back home again. Now, if she was to find a more permanent occupation in the meantime, in her dream industry of all places…”

 

 _Daddy wouldn't dare wrench his little princess from her deluded dreams._ Cersei frowned deeply. There were more pressing concerns at the forefront of her mind than catering to a clumsy if somewhat pretty teenager. Baelish was back and no one had told her? _Some people bring home souvenirs, he brings me child slaves._ How was Taena in on any of that anyway? Too many things going on behind her back. “Why was I not informed about this?”

 

“You were so very busy, my love.”

 

Cersei snorted, reaching for her glass only to find it almost empty. She felt like she should reprimand Taena for this betrayal somehow. But Greyjoy was waiting for her three floors down and it was too much of a headache to think of any reasonable venom to spit. “I don’t have time for this. Why do we need her?”

 

“The Starks are capable investors,” Taena explained. “Perhaps it might be good to have them on our side? We’re offering shelter and guidance to papa Stark’s confused little girl. We should be owed a favor or two.”

 

“The Starks are _lawyers_ ,” Cersei corrected. “Brooding, boring, law-abiding mice. They invested in Robert because that bitch Lyanna spread her legs for him once back in the nineties. What good are they to me?”

 

Taena’s voice dropped to just the hint of a whisper, mischief diffused all over her clever face. “Petyr was thinking that perhaps we could use a positive relationship with people who are trusted by Stannis. Just in case.”

 

Cersei took a moment to contemplate. Then her expression mirrored Taena’s.

 

Stannis was an old and unshakable detractor. They’d never gotten along, no more than she’d managed with any of the Baratheon brothers. They all shared a certain of air of unpleasantness between them, from Renly’s overinflated ego to Robert’s general tendency to be human garbage. Stannis was possibly worse. They’d started hating each other from the moment they were introduced to one another at her wedding reception and the conservative fool had dared criticize her choice of gown, dubbing it too revealing for the occasion. She’d called him a shrewd, he’d called her Machiavellian and power-hungry. There’d only been more of the same since then. She’d never considered him to be anything more than a bitter little man though, a slight thorn in her plans for happiness, until today. Today was the first time he’d made serious allegations against her personally, and the Lannister family as a whole.

 

The Starks could be of use with that. Eddard Stark was a legal counselor, with a reputation for being about as bribable as a tree log. She’d hire him in case Stannis was planning on filing an actual lawsuit based on the simple fact that she was apparently the last person on Arryn's dial list, and that they'd found traces of arsenic in his body during the post-mortem. It didn't matter. She'd make sure Stark and Stannis had time to chat. Stannis would trust Stark's word for it, yes. The Starks didn’t take on dishonest clients. They could help ease the tension without bloodshed, like the boring pacifists that they were. And besides... it was always good to have a means to mislead Stannis.

 

Understanding slowly smoothed out Cersei’s face.

 

_The friend of my enemy can still be my dearest friend._

 

She gave a slow nod, inclining her head towards the Stark daughter, keeping her voice low as she spoke. “Very well. Hire it. Fix it. Keep it out of my sight until it’s well-behaved and better dressed.”

 

Taena grinned knowingly. She clapped her hands and smiled broadly at the girl that had paled considerably during their exchange. Cersei groaned quietly as her friend’s voice falsettoed to a wince worthy octave. “Alright, Sansa dear, you’re hired.”

 

It seemed to work wonders because the dove’s face lit up like a candy shop. “I am?”

 

“You sure are. You're starting immediately. You can tell your father all about the Lannister hospitality the next time you hear from him.”

 

“I will, I will, I promise. Thank you so much, Miss Lannister, Miss Merrywheather. I'll do such a good job, I promise I won’t be a disappointment—”

 

“Don’t start off with lies, Sansa,” Cersei cut her off mercilessly. She turned to Taena again, this time directing a slender finger at her new employee. “Redress, restyle, reprogram. And get rid of the accent, it’s not doing her any favors.”

 

Then she poured herself another glass of vodka and watched the ice set sail in a lake of ethanol, swirling the drink and observing scenes of icebergs drifting into a sea storm in miniature. “You are supposed to be doing this for me, dear,” she said coolly as she swept past her intimidated new assistant, Taena following hot on her heels. “I’ll let it slide this once but that’s it.”

 

Then she pushed the door open and headed downstairs to meet this Euron Greyjoy, letting the girl decide for herself if she was supposed to follow. First test.

 

She heard a third set of footsteps, eventually, a strange clomping noise, different from the pointed clank of her designer heels and those of Taena. Even the girl’s boots sounded off. “Stay,” Cersei intoned without turning.

 

No more artless clomping. Good.

 

The girl’s presence by her side was perfunctory anyway. She was here to facilitate a good riddance of an old enemy, and that was it. Cersei would not pretend to be some sort of fairy godmother to this child. A little animosity would do her good.

 

Cersei stalked away, feeling good about her strategy. Let the Canadian Mona Lisa feel the spray of fame on her freckled child face for a while. Let her have a taste of L.A.’s sweeter elixir, let her gurgle all about it to her jurist daddy. The fashion business ruined girls like her all the time. Let her feel wanted. Let her get dazed by nothing. But let her make no mistake. She _wasn’t_ welcome.

 

* * *

 

Greyjoy was an arrogant creature. Occupying the finest spot of the twentieth-floor café overlooking the city, sitting opposite the man himself with Taena at her side, Cersei drank her dreadful latte in bitter impotence, wondering how her life had come to this—sucking up to people she wouldn’t have sneezed at two years ago. She supposed it was only fitting that the downpour the weather channel had promised finally made an appearance, soaking her terraces as the sky broke into thin white veins, blinking like a camera taking snapshots of the city below.

 

Cersei sighed, looking over at Greyjoy. Her new investor.

 

He wasn’t exactly what she’d expected. Knowing Balon Greyjoy, the man’s older brother, Cersei had been half-prepared to conduct negotiations with a slightly less scraggy version of the old scarecrow himself. What had awaited her in the middle of her conference hall was far from that. 

 

First off, there had been women. _Her_ women, the women working under her, all of the women whose job was on that floor as well as some from adjacent departments which Cersei recognized. The way they’d all flanked the large round table, one might think gravity itself was sitting in the middle of it. Which of course was the only possible excuse Cersei would accept for this ongoing hysteria. From inside what looked like an improvised AA assemblage, a pleasant voice could be heard purring about how sexually stimulating genocide was. Taena had elbowed all trash aside to carve a path for Cersei within the circle.

 

There he was.

 

Euron Greyjoy was admittedly handsome, not much was up for debate on that front, but his handsomeness rubbed off in all the wrong ways. A Cuban cigar hung from his lips, despite the sign of prohibition Cersei had made sure was gracing every wall possible and staring down at her employees sternly at all times. 

 

Cersei immediately distrusted the man. Something about him put her in the mind of Robert, some of that devil-may-care attitude that pig her late husband had lost in the early years of their marriage, though in all fairness Robert had always lacked the innate cleverness that this man possessed.

 

The moment he’d laid his eyes on her it was clear as day he wanted to fuck her. Very well. Let him stare. Cersei was used to the eyes of strangers, being undressed by them. Truth be told it brought her a degree of satisfaction to know she could still draw such libidinous looks from men who weren’t that far from her own age.

 

“I dare say the cameras don’t do you justice, my dear,” were his first words to her. Every woman in the room was forced to direct her attention towards her looming boss, if rather reluctantly. Cersei waved the brood of salacious women away, infuriated when more than half deliberately took their time exiting. _He wants me you foolish bitches_ , she had wanted to hiss. _Men want what’s above them, not beneath them._

 

On the way to the café she’d kindly asked him to stop smoking, he'd ignored her. Fine. Let him play the prime mover. At the end of the day, this was still _her_ territory and she was still holding all the cards. Greyjoy would see, one way or another.

 

But it got worse. What she’d primarily dubbed a desire for her had quickly expanded into an appetency for power Cersei hadn’t witnessed in a long time. For each of her demands he had two of his own. The man was a shark that could smell it was needed and wasn’t scared to play hardball to get what he wanted. She’d asked for a short-term loan, he’d straight out requested to be hooked up with Robert’s position on Tywin Lannister’s company or something of equal importance. She’d wanted to be granted an extra 20% to make up for the last-minute shoots, he’d cheekily asked for creative control over her stock in the Lannister-Baratheon dealings, and a token photograph of her in thongs (Taena had valiantly volunteered herself for the distasteful task, though Cersei had put a stop to it while mentally taking a note to thank her friend later). And then, then Greyjoy had set his drink aside, looked her straight in the eye and delivered the most ridiculous suggestion of all. Effectively causing Cersei to choke and spit a little.  

 

“Lioness is a respectable brand and managerial business,” she found herself saying through gritted teeth, ice-cold. “I will _not_ be associated with that kind of filth.”

 

Euron grinned like he’d just overheard something impossibly funny.

 

“Now, now. Adult films are hardly ‘filth’. I promise you my work is very dignified, and fairly artistic. If you look at it the right way, our businesses complete each other, really. You sell the wrapping, I sell the essence. Everything will be handled with utmost discretion. There’s nothing to be weary of, at least not from me. I’m not interested in tarnishing your good name. Once you get to know me you’ll come to realize I care very little for things that don’t damage or benefit me in any way. Now I’m a newcomer to this city of angels, or a very old local if you will. I won’t pretend nothing’s changed during my absence. The whole game’s been moderated. As it stands my old friends are now my enemies. I need to carve out a market all over again. With your widespread connections I’m sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble to work out a nice little niche where I can conduct my harmless hobby in peace… free of pesky governmental fingers, I’m sure you’ll understand. But that shouldn’t be a problem for a woman such as you, yes? I’m told you Lannisters cast some long shadows. I should be more than happy to just enjoy the quiet of them.”

 

Cersei stared ahead, not liking the tone this man was taking with her. Clearly she needed to set the boundaries early on, before any more drastic liberties were taken. “The game _has_ been moderated, Mr. Greyjoy,” she said coolly, flashing her teeth. “Allow me to explain the rules. When somebody of prominence is so kind as to invite you into a flourishing business, you don’t generally insult them by setting ultimatums before they’ve even finished their drink.”

 

Euron didn’t seem intimidated by her reaction at all, just slightly amused, which only added fuel to the fire that was raging under her skin, poking at her cheekbones and causing her a dreadful eye twitch. “Do sheath your claws, my dear. I’m hardly obsolete, and your business is most definitely far from _flourishing_ or else we wouldn’t be here. We both have our needs and fames, don’t we?”

 

He let the question linger, smiling widely and complacently, provoking her to bite back.

 

The smug son of a bitch. How dare he toss that in her face. Her commitment to various clinics, her boy’s death… Those were things Cersei was _not_ taunted with. Those were things Cersei killed for. Taena’s touch under the table as a regrettable reminder that _we need him, C, I’m sorry but we do_ was all that stopped her from having the man dragged out by security.

 

Cersei held her tongue, pumping blood into her fist. It cost her the edge of a perfectly good fingernail, which she would not be forgetting anytime soon.

 

“We do,” she agreed icily. “I seem to recall you made quite the news when your own brother exposed your cartel to the police and sent you to prison.”

 

Jaime had been present at the arrest, and he’d told her all about it. How the man had growled and grunted like an animal as he was being hauled into a patrol car. How he had to be sedated twice before they’d been able to take a proper picture of him behind bars. How his first three cellmates had ended up either crippled or dead.

 

To her uttermost annoyance, Euron just gave a blithe shrug and exhaled a generous puff of smoke in her face. “My brother, your father… We have been largely eclipsed by our relatives so far, wouldn’t you say? Wouldn’t you like to turn the tables, Cersei? May I call you that? Good. The way I see it, there’s no reason for us to not get along presently. This is as good an opportunity as they come for us overlooked children to finally seize what’s ours.”

 

Cersei gave him a skeptical look from underneath her magnified eyelashes. She perked her chin up defiantly, in bitter refusal to let it show that he was hitting a sore spot. “No.”

 

Euron raised his eyebrows, the first sign that things were starting to spill out of his little game board. It brought Cersei a great deal of pleasure to see the expression cross his face, even if it got traded for that same maddening smirk a second later. “Just like that? No?”

 

“I’m not interested…”

 

“I ask you to be honest with me, Cersei. That much I will stick to. I like honesty.” He grinned again, another, cruder man flashing underneath the mask of his charm for a second. “Prison makes you have more appreciation for simple virtues like that. We should be honest with each other if we’re going to reach a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

 

Cersei sighed, giving the man a long, hard look of appraisal before sinking back in her chair. “You’re too big a risk to take,” she explained, more tiredly than coldly. Her head was killing her and the fluorescent lighting wasn't helping. “You’re asking me to sweet-talk my father into employing you without showcasing any of the necessary qualifications or connections. You want me to spread illegal pornography and launder money for your business, both things I’ve no desire to commit to as you don’t have any guarantee to back it up. I’ve no plans for another government-sponsored vacation, Mr. Greyjoy. I just don’t.”

 

Euron gifted her with a largely untelling smirk. A disturbingly jolly chuckle for a man who’d just been refused escaped his lips.

 

“And I’ve no plans to send you on one,” he affirmed. “See? There goes some common ground we can work with. I’ve learned my lessons, Cersei, trust me, I’ve learned them the hard way. You don’t want to go where I’ve been. You think you had it rough in your little clinics?” He leveled his gaze with hers, the curve of his lips losing that cryptic smirk at last. Something about his look and his tone sent a chill racing down her spine, making her flinch uncomfortably. “Try doing six years in a federal prison and then come talk to me, darling. I can promise you I won’t be going to jail again, either. You see I’m just as motivated to steer clear as you are. I know it might be difficult to believe right now but I understand you very well. And I take good care of my associates. L.A. is just the first mile of a long and interesting road, one I would be happy to share with a resourceful woman such as you. Help me seize this vile little city, Cersei. I swear to you you won’t regret it.”   

 

Cersei dipped her head, looking the man slantwise, weighing his words, trying to separate the useful bits from the bullshit. He was a nasty piece of work but she needed him. She hated to not have options. It made her feel like a cat in a cage, similar to how they’d treated her in the asylums.

 

Greyjoy, debatable as he was, was offering money. Some of it would be risky, but it was still money. In this world, money was power, and power was everything. Power was something she could never refuse, and the promise of it danced in Euron’s eyes like a blue flame. She was still weary though, and she knew she was too wrapped up in silly problems that dated years back. She was aware she was juggling too many plates as it was. And yet if she just reached for one more… Perhaps Tywin Lannister might see her potential at last.

 

“Very well,” she declared finally. “I want all funds transferred to Lioness by the end of the day. I also expect us to share profits, on _all_ our joined affairs.”

 

Euron seemed a bit too pleased with himself when he parted his lips, extinguishing his cigar at long last. “Excellent choice, my Lioness,” he drawled, inclining his head. He was staring at her like he was twelve and just discovered masturbation, and Cersei wanted to bash his head into something so very badly. “Just _marvelous_. I’ll be looking forward to hearing from Mr. Tywin, too.”

 

Cersei snuffled, ignoring the demeaning look and the nickname he was giving her, as well as the urge to rip out the tongue which had uttered it. She should’ve taken another one of Qyburn’s pills before committing to this. He had advised her not to take more than three every week but this was clearly going to be the kind of man who was in full capacity to give her severe headaches with just a few select words.

 

She stood up from her chair, indicating that the brunch was over. Taena quickly scuttled to her feet, followed by Euron who came up to meet the women halfway round the table. Cersei extended her hand as if to offer it up for a kiss before letting it rest briefly atop his. Up close, he smelled like wine and cheap women, but also like money and ritzy aftershave and, most intriguingly—recreational drugs. She made sure to store that last bit of information away for later usage. Greyjoy took her by surprise when he bent over and touched his lips to the back of her hand before she could slap him, tasting the gold of her rings and bracelet. Wonderful. Now she’d have to give them up for charity. 

 

“I’ll try and suggest you for a pretty job to my father the next I see him. But these things take time,” she warned sweetly. Let him think she’d lift a finger. Let him think he’d get what he wanted. The second he was no longer a priority she’d toss him to the dogs and disinfect her hands right after.

 

“I’ve no doubt you can speed them along,” Euron had the audacity to purr before releasing her hand and winking knowingly. _We’re both in on a secret now._ How had it come to this, really? Cersei had the sudden and overwhelming urge to palm her face. “After all, you don’t seem to mind putting an entire issue together all in less than two weeks.”

 

Cersei narrowed her eyes and watched after Greyjoy as he took his leave without further pleasantries, feeling like the stakes had been upped. Taena moved closer and captured her hand in silence, kissing her shoulder. Cersei sank into the vaults of her own thoughts. It was important to learn the ropes of this new chessboard quickly, figure out the rules as fast as she could. _I can do this_ , Cersei thought to herself, inhaling deeply to soothe her twitching eye and fingers. She wouldn’t end up in a hellhole clinic, ever again. She was stronger than anyone was giving her credit for.

 

_Just you watch, father. I can play the game just as well as you do._

 

* * *

 

The news hit her like a fire truck on steroids. Just like that— _an email for you, Miss Lannister_ —and it was all taken away from her. Cersei was beside herself. Just when her plans had started to come to fruition. Just when she'd thought that maybe, just maybe, she could start building a respectable life around herself once again. All had been snatched away from her by the grace of a finger snap. 

 

She couldn’t believe this was being done to her by her father—again. _Why, father? Haven’t I been a good fucking girl for you all this time?_

 

Tyrion had a hand in it. He had to. For sure. She sensed his sticky little fingers were all over the damn thing. How she longed to break them one by one, then rearrange them so she could break them again.

 

She popped open a new pack of Qyburn’s magic pills and chewed one without water. The world was spinning funnily by the time she brushed past the cloud of measured touches and worried words that was Taena, and entered the parking lot.

 

Cersei staggered out into the night—when had it turned so fucking dark outside?—and slammed herself into her black cherry Porsche without further ceremony, ass first, heels in the air, with the clear intention to go murder the little creep that had done this to her. Then she remembered she didn’t know where the creep was.

 

Then she crumbed one more pill between her teeth and forgot about everything and anything at all.

 

* * *

 

She’d ended up at a logical place, somehow, despite her delirious state. It made sense, at least to her, even through the haze of booze and self-medication and shitty circumstances, that her shaking hands gripping the wheel would still know what she needed, just where to take her. This was where she’d always end up. 

 

She hadn’t called to let him know she was coming. She was almost sure her phone had buzzed at some point as she speeded and swerved across L.A. (she’d never known Californians were such loud honkers at night), but she’d never reached for it. It was too much of a headache to tackle the thing but that was beside the point—as if _she_ ’d ever call _him_. She’d never needed to make her presence known to him in advance. Whenever she came around, he was always there, waiting for her. She belonged with her other half.  

 

She hadn’t been aware she was driving his way until she was where she was presently, leaning up against the wide door frame of his penthouse, with her dress hitched up past her knees and her make-up smudged and her hair messed up and her eye contact all slippy, pounding at the door with her ten-inch heel while trying very hard to remember why she was pissed. She was pretty sure Tyrion had something to do with it but beyond that there wasn’t much of anything in there save empty blanks.  

 

_THUD THUD THUD._

 

“Jaime!” Cersei wailed hoarsely, damning the drought that sat in her throat and refused to be swallowed. “Open up you… you dickless hand.” It didn’t sound right when she was saying it out loud like that. Not one bit. Where the hell was he? Did he think it was funny to torture her like that, to leave her out in the cold just so he could have a snicker?

 

No, no he wouldn’t do that to her. Her twin had never been cruel. He never made her beg or wait or worry. What was up with him tonight?

 

She briefly registered she’d started clawing at the door at full force at this point, voice constantly flipping from flirty to angry to coy again.

 

“J,” Cersei giggled. “J,” Cersei sobbed. “Come out, J, I need you.”

 

Nothing.

 

It took a fair bit of time until it finally dawned on her dazed mind that her brother wasn’t home. Anger boiled at the pit of her stomach. Where was he when she needed him? Thankfully there was a nice man living next door who showed up in his pajama briefs and kindly directed her back to her vehicle. He wanted to know if she was OK and why she was crying. Cersei frowned deeply, wondering what the hell he was talking about. Then a woman was yelling from the front porch for the man to keep away from the trash and get back in. Oddly enough, Cersei didn't notice any trash bags lying around. He seemed like a sweet guy though. She thanked him and wondered why guys like that were always married to bitches.  

 

She drove off again. It was like being in one of those simulator things where the car was flying through space. The next thing she knew she was reeling at another doorstep. The floor suddenly seemed awfully far away. Cersei toppled and felt her shoulder hit the wall, a careful act of balance. This time her kicks were rewarded as a familiar dark-haired head poked out from inside the suite.

 

That was where she wound up spending the night, too—the only place that seemed to always welcome her, no questions asked. Taena’s apartment was warm and almost calming as Cersei puked and curled in her friend’s bed, senselessly fucking the Spanish woman until the other could orgasm no more, then angrily crying herself to sleep tucked in Taena’s sheets, surrounded by Taena’s arms that tried to be comforting, completely forgetting about the fact that her phone was still flashing its single red eye, citing a missed call.

 


	5. Jaime II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an ex-cop is sucked back into a world that used to fit around him like a glove.

V.

 

The green line jumped and fell through on the black monitor like it was trying to make fucking Christmas trees out of the wavering pulse. The sound of it exploded in Jaime's ears even though there was a glass wall between him and the kid that could be recognized as patches of skin between the many contraptions that kept him alive for the time being.  _BEEP. BEEP. BEEP._  A funny way of measuring human life. Disturbing as hell, too.

 

Pangs of reflex guilt scissored Jaime's gut. Payne was a piece of shit but his grandson had probably done little to deserve a perforated stomach, a fractured skull and a community hospital cot all at the frail age of nineteen. Jaime couldn't recall doing anything significant with his life at nineteen, past fighting not to be sent to a crappy private law school, teaching Tyrion how to drink, and looking for creative ways to get Cersei to do it with no condom.

 

Jaime pressed his lips together as he looked on at this kid who'd always seemed duller than a horse to him and yet here he lay, strewn with injuries, an officer's badge sewn in on his discarded, bloodied uniform. His own bullet scars—two across the ribs from a manhunt, one at the shoulder from when he'd been stupid enough to hand Cersei a gun to practice and not given her a clear 150 yard, 360 degree perimeter to knock herself out—seemed to stir at the sight of the boy.

 

 _That should've been you on that bed,_  a small voice sang, solemn and reprehensible and sounding a lot like Tarth.  _Or perhaps you would've done better. Now you don't get to know how the story might've been written._

 

"What happened?" Jaime asked, the question directed at the only man around that might have bothered to answer, however much did he not want to.

 

"What do you think happened," Clegane spat out slouching against the opposite wall, grunting as a nurse kindly asked him to put away his booze. The man had a weird way of giving the impression that he'd rather be anyplace but where he was standing, everywhere, all the time. "The streets happened. Fucked if I know what exactly. All I know is, they were on to something. Something big and nasty that should've been left alone but they poked at it and now it's bitten back."

 

"Were you with them, when it happened?"

 

"Do I look like a fucking guardian angel to you?" Clegane snapped, teeth out. The way he looked at Jaime, you'd think he'd pulled a Judas on the whole damn station. If Sandor fucking Clegane was taking a moral hardline with you, there was something very wrong about your day.

 

"No, you look like a big mean Rottweiler. Thought you'd be proud."

 

Clegane lifted up his head sharply. Not a sight to behold. His jaw was set and his bushy brows were clashed together. His stubble was wet from dripping beer foam though, spoiling the effect of his silent wrath. The burn scars were as Jaime remembered them, creased and everywhere and the color of grilled shit. They made that part of Clegane's face look as if it was constantly offended by the presence of air. And that was arguably the better part.

 

"Don't let the last name fool you, Lannister," Clegane barked, lowly, a warning. "I'm not your father's dog. I'm not your nana and I'm not a saint. I'm a cop, I'm here on duty and I'll handcuff you to a damned chair if you don't keep your stump out of my face and your guilty questions to yourself. Go look to relieve your conscience elsewhere."

 

 _What the hell do I have to feel guilty for?_  Jaime wondered. That was always the damn question.

 

He hadn't done anything. Except that was the problem. He'd done nothing and Tarth's blood was all over the walls of a fucking warehouse storage.

 

He hated Clegane for being right on the money again. The man seemed to mind his own business religiously, but when it came to work, he somehow knew what went through each head that surrounded him. It was what made him a good detective as opposed to a mere ruffian like his older brother. Less great of a company for Sunday golf games, but that was inessential.

 

"What were they investigating, exactly?" Jaime asked, eyes carefully following Clegane's expression. If angry nothing ever had a face, that was it.

 

"Which part of 'fuck off' didn't you get? The fuck or the off?"

 

"I thought you were supposed to be a  _Hound_ , Clegane, not a bitch. I need to know what happened to her. There's a chance she's still out there somewhere. She doesn't deserve to die like a dog. No offence." Clegane looked like he was about to either punch through his teeth or worse—stalk away. Jaime cleared his throat, not liking either prospect. He needed the information but he wasn't in any position to fight for it, not anymore. With two good hands and a stick, maybe he might've taken Clegane back in the day. Maybe. On a good day. Now he was little more than a punching bag, not even a good sport, and they both knew it. "My point is, I need to know the details. What she was up to, who she saw, what she did, that sort of thing. What was she investigating, last that you know of? Come on, Clegane. Do you really want her death to be on you?"

 

Clegane snarled, grumbled, stared daggers, but thankfully didn't complicate things any further.

 

"There was no official investigation you dumb fuck. The higher-ups told Tarth to drop it the minute they realized she'd been sticking her nose in that particular pile of shit. I've heard it had to do with some Canadian black marketers with connections up high but that's it. It was clear as day the whole thing was rotten from the head down but Tarth of course couldn't sit on her shit for five goddamn minutes.

 

"She had no business sniffing around the big fish. Everyone told her to let it go. But no. She had to drag the boy into it too. A decent kid. Thick as a log, but he meant well. He followed her around like a lost puppy for two months until they finally gave him a chance. It was his first day on the job. His first damn day. Look at him. He might be a corpse by tonight. We don't mean squat to any bastard with money and influence. That's how they take care of officers around here these days." Clegane barred his teeth down at Jaime. "Officers who don't have a rich Daddy to cover their fuck-ups with plasters of cash at every turn."

 

Jaime let out a droopy sigh, reclining his head on the fortified glass peering into Payne's misfortune.  _And there I was, forgetting you were an asshole._

 

He was getting too old for that kind of shit. He didn't have time for it. Not today, when his family had sucked him dry and he still had Tarth to worry about. Even so, it was a terrible prospect to think he might have to suffer Clegane's silent treatment without hitting back.

 

Jaime held the man's gaze, never breaking it as he pulled out a lighter he hadn't neurotically reached for in five years. He ignited the flame and dangled the thing between his fingers as carelessly as he could. Thoroughly enjoyed the look of dead recognition that flew over Clegane's face before it got ushered away by enmity.

 

"I never really got what your problem was, Clegane," Jaime drawled, casually as if ordering a soda. "I guess standing this close to a lighter must be making you giddy."

 

He'd heard all about Clegane's gruesome story, the reason he'd flip every time a cigarette was lit on the floor. Iraq wasn't kind to Americans, but rumor had it it had been Gregor himself who'd pushed his brother's face into a bonfire after they'd hit the skids on an operation.  _There might still be a family that has one up on ours_ , Jaime thought bitterly.

 

Clegane pushed himself off the wall, finally, started walking up towards him in heavy, creaking steps. Jaime hadn't grown taller in those last two years nor had Clegane shrunken, and the inches stretching between them were still undeniably there, minatory.

 

"I just gave you classified information, Lannister," Clegane rumbled, nasty breath skating over Jaime's face, making him grimace, "so you can maybe make use of your privileged life, or go get killed in a funny way. Whatever the case, don't make me regret it."

 

A gruff laughter butted in the hostility of their silence, timely as much as it was uncalled for, and then a hand was patting Clegane's shoulder informally. Clegane tensed at the neck. Jaime wasn't sure Janos Slynt realized the danger his fingers were in.

 

"Go take a piss, Clegane," Slynt howled, unadvisedly elbowing the man. He had a vastly unimpressive voice for the whole imposing deputy sheriff thing he was trying to sell. "Cool off a little. And watch your drinks while you're on duty, for fuck's sake." The irony swimming in the sheriff's own bloodshot cornea was not lost on Jaime, but Slynt would never be worth the effort it would take to point it out.

 

Clegane growled gutturally, stared each man down, then probably decided it was better to let the two pricks before him annoy the hell out of each other instead of getting in the middle of it. Jaime watched him stride away without another word. It might as well be the wisest move he'd witnessed today.

 

Slynt directed his permanently constipated face towards Jaime, burying his pepper-like nose into a coffee cup. "Sorry about that. Want some? It's decaf. Clegane's piss might taste better but Christ knows I've been trying to cut down on the, ah, progressive killers, that's what my wife calls 'em."

 

Ignoring the man's small talk came as easily as Jaime remembered. "Any sign of her yet?"

 

Slynt sighed and shook his head. "Nothing for the time being."

 

"How many people are out looking?"

 

"Listen, Lannister..."

 

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Jaime scowled through pressed teeth. "No one? A detective's been kidnapped. There was blood at the scene.  _Her_  blood. One officer has been heavily injured and another is being held hostage probably tortured for information, and here you are, with your imbecile peaked cap on, drinking fucking decaf."

 

Slynt stifled a curse. His wounded ego bled a bright red across his obnoxious porky face, a hue Jaime longed to punch right off.

 

"I know it's difficult to hear, Lannister," Slynt began, composing himself with some difficulty, "but we don't even have a way of confirming her status. Chances are she's dead already. You know only 10% of the assaults on officers have to do with kidnapping. Maybe they just wanted her dead. Maybe they don't care about a ransom. Don't let your personal feelings get in the way of your judgment, fella."

 

 _Why take her and leave Payne to die on the street if they were just planning to kill her?_  Correcting Slynt's logic would get him nowhere. "I wouldn't fella me if I were you, Slynt. And you're certainly not increasing her chances by sitting around doing nothing."

"I can assure you I'm doing everything within my power of jurisdiction..."

"Jerking off is not a power of jurisdiction, Slynt."

Slynt's face grew pink and outraged like a pustule. He jabbed a finger in Jaime's chest. The guy seemed hellbent on losing a limb today. Even one-handed, Jaime was pretty sure he could hook Slynt up with a room right next to Payne's.

 

"Watch it, Lannister! Remember I'm still your superior. Look, it ain't that simple. They weren't out on an official investigation so that's an additional complication to account for. As far as the state of California's concerned those two were just a pair of bastards who got mugged near a storage that wasn't their property. Dang… Until Payne wakes up we've no way of identifying the assailants anyway. Fuckers left us nothing to work with."

 

Jaime rubbed his temple. The level of incompetence had clearly risen since he'd taken his leave.  _No one_  ever left  _nothing_  behind.

 

It all dawned on him in one instant.  _No one_  left nothing behind. Clegane's words about the connections up high suddenly clicked into place. He narrowed his eyes down at Slynt, his suspicions confirmed when the man's gaze was painstakingly moved away. Un-fucking-believable.

 

"You know who it is, don't you," Jaime growled, a statement. "You know the son of a bitch who did this."

 

He watched Slynt's reaction, the way those piggy eyes went wide and frightened at first, then squinting and resistive. "It's a delicate situation…"

 

"It's always a delicate fucking situation," Jaime scoffed, not bothering to conceal the revolt in his voice. His jaw tightened. Heat prickled his ghost hand, taunting him to hammer Slynt up against the nearest wall. "I don't know whose shit she's stepped in on this time, but she's an officer. An honest, loyal, capable officer. That's more than half your station can say for themselves. You owe her."

 

"This is bigger than me and you, Lannister! Jesus. You think I don't wanna help her? My hands are tied. Cut me some slack here!"

 

Jaime paced up and down the corridor, wondering how it could have all gone to shit in just two years. They'd had the odd mole before, sure, like in your typical station, but never like this. Never had there been a net so vast, a rat so well hidden.

 

"How does Dayne even allow this?"

 

Slynt spat out cynically.

 

"Oh, you think Dayne likes this anymore than you and I? The man's a fucking legend. It's killing him to stand and watch. It's killing him more than it's killing us, let me tell you that. Really, Lannister, what's wrong with you? You waltz in here after two years of maternity leave since they pulled your spine out through your vagina, and suddenly you're bleeding deeper than the rest of us? Fuck that, Lannister. Dayne's not like you. He has real honor. His badge means something. This whole thing haunts him more than you'll ever know. But he bears it in silence. Like a man. Savvy?"

 

Jaime fisted the air. He didn't fucking savvy. How could he? It was all a giant, reeking pile of shit. He'd fled Dad's snake nest and came onto another.

 

So Dayne wasn't going to be any help. Fucking Arthur Dayne had succumbed to an offstage scheme. He looked around to check if the earth was still spinning. It was weird to be hearing of a god's downfall, especially one you'd used to worship.

 

Jaime swallowed hard, muscles rippling from the center to the column of his throat. It was stupid. Dayne had taught him everything, except how to cope with shit on his own.

 

Now he had to. Now he had no fucking choice. The damn cow, he had to hand it to her, she'd finally found a way to draw him out of his cubbyhole. Getting herself beat up and abducted might be the most gratuitous act of stubbornness she'd demonstrated in her life. Damn her.

 

This wasn't going to be a reboot of the old days, Jaime was painfully aware of it. This world he was getting sucked back into, it used to fit around him like a glove. But now it was a strange place that made him feel like a relic. And it got worse.  _It_  wasn't the only thing that had changed. Bygone were the days when he could charge in with a gun and a grin and let his body follow its own instinct, that thing that told him to fight and to fuck Cersei. His body didn't know what to do with a gun anymore. No, this would be a slow and derogatory crawl across a track he used to sprint on, and it would be every bit as humiliating as it sounded. It would not be fun to be Jaime in the next few days.

 

Jaime fixed his collar, ever the gentleman. Wouldn't Cersei be proud. He whirled on his heels and shuffled away without another word.

 

"Where the hell are you going?" Slynt shouted after him, spit flying.

 

Jaime pinned the blockhead to the wall with his version of Cersei's murderous gaze.

 

"Where does it look like I'm fucking going? To do your damned job. You wanna dance around drinking your healthy crappuccino till you're a hundred? Fine. But if you so much as think to get in my way, I'll end you. If I don't my father will. Fucking savvy? Oh. And do tell Dayne my furlough's temporarily suspended."

 

* * *

 

His cousin in a flurry was the stuff of horror movies—those cheapest, crappiest one-and-a-half hours that still got a couple of unintentional laughs out of you.

 

He'd changed a lot since uncle Kevan had bought him a badge. He wore a set of big boy pants now, and he'd finally gotten rid of that Elizabethan hair gala he used to carry around on his head. He even tried to work up a deeper voice when he talked. Underneath this new attitude though, Jaime could still smell the looser who'd used to fetch cocktails for him and his siblings at family brunches. Up until their fourteenth year, he and Cersei had believed little Lancel was part of the personnel, much to uncle Kevin's shock and affront.

 

On a regular day, it might have been somewhat funny to watch the boy take himself so goddamn seriously with his newfound station and privileges. But tonight, Jaime needed a favor. From him, of all people. Life did pull its strange jokes on the Lannister family at very fitting opportunity, he supposed.

 

The sound of Lancel's creepy long fingers smeared with grease or lube or Christ knew what rat-tatting furiously across a keyboard put Jaime in the mind of mice. Not those mutant rats that lurked in abandoned farms, mind you, just little city mice scurrying from this corner of the subway station to the other, chomping the shit of bigger animals to get through the day.

 

"I can't do it," wailed Lancel, sweat glistening in the yellow moss across his upper lip. He wiped his forehead dramatically. "It cannot be done."

 

Coming up from behind, Jaime hugged the tops of his cousin's chair with his left arm, the complete one, the one that ended with fingers. He rested his chin in the crook of his elbow. Invaded his cousin's personal space quite on purpose, sniffing the sweetish aftershave inhabiting the skinny neck. Lavender? Some weird things kids were into these days. He blew slightly on a perky ear, for the fun of it, barely containing his amusement when the boy flinched and wiggled in his chair like a cockroach.

 

"Come on, cuz," Jaime said airily, smacking Lancel on the nape a notch harder than he usually did Tyrion, "you're this big scary officer now, aren't you? Act it. She's not fucking Schrödinger's cat. Just find her."

 

Lancel tried his version of an irritated groan. "I'm telling you, those chips they've been handing out, they're untraceable. It was just to test these new gadgets that are gonna flood the market ten years from now." His cousin's lip jutted forward in a wildly non-threatening pout. "And I don't owe you any help."

 

Jaime briefly wondered if this was his cousin trying to sound menacing. In all fairness he seemed to give it his all. Jaime found himself not even wanting to bash the boy into the flat of the desk. He admitted he'd felt the twinge of grudge when he'd first heard Lancel was being handed the life that had once belonged to  _him_ , but every time he saw the boy, he got more and more convinced his cousin would simply never be what he'd used to be. Poor kid just wasn't cut out for it.

 

 _He doesn't love the bullets,_  Jaime thought. You couldn't hope to be a cop if you didn't have at least that. If anything, Jaime was starting to feel the beginnings of pity towards his relative, for all the crap their family would dump on the boy's head for not living up to their expectations.  _He's more Tyrion than me, and he's got none of Tyr's redeeming intelligence, either._

 

"Remember dear cousin," Jaime sighed, a little miffed that he'd have to play that card, "last Thanksgiving when I entered aunt Genna's rooms to fetch a much needed dose of Merlot, and there you were, furiously scrubbing your dick right on her bed? My help seemed to suit you fine then."

 

Lancel crossed his legs like a schoolgirl, thoroughly blushing.

 

"I can't track her!" he repeated, far from the cocky nerd this time.

 

Jaime sighed. Unfortunately, he believed him. "And there I thought those hands could be of use to someone other than yourself on a lonely Friday night. Alright, cuz, follow me then."

 

Lancel stiffened. "Follow you? Follow you where?"

 

"To plan B, of course. I'm back on my job, you see, but you know how tedious jurisdiction is. It'll be weeks before I have my free access back. If you would kindly unlock detective Tarth's office for me in the meantime."

 

"Hell no! That's breach of ethics, I'm an officer—"

 

Jaime grabbed Lancel by the neck and helpfully directed him towards the door to Tarth's office nose first, ignoring his relative's woozy struggles as they lollopped across the patterned, hardwood floor. A good thing the station was half-empty on a Saturday evening or else they might be in trouble for this.

 

"In you go." The imminent threat of flat solid core timber approaching was enough for Lancel to cave in. A little fumbling with the keys and Jaime was staring at a life he thought he'd left behind forever.

 

Tarth's office hadn't changed one bit since he'd last seen the inside of it. The whole place was neat and formal, and still smelled of her trademark unaromatic washing powder. (She'd been here as early as this afternoon, Jaime had to remind himself, making plans to head out and do the thing that would get her shot and kidnapped, even though it seemed like an eternity since he'd hung up on her in the middle of the Peninsula hallway.)

 

Despite his initial reluctance, even Lancel poked his head in over his big cousin's shoulder, gulping like a kid in a museum.

 

The room had mismatched wooden furniture, poured floors and textured walls. The ceiling-length shelves were stacked full of case files, with colorful markers sticking from the bulks of paper at every odd page. An impressive set of records. They'd swollen considerably during his absence, Jaime noted. Other than those, among the first things one noticed walking in were a collection of memorabilia and a large mug of pens and pencils, the only personal belongings she allowed herself to carry around. See, the big bitch had a thing for professionalism. Probably why she was thirty four and a virgin (that and the fact that her job was to lug most of her street acquaintances into a patrol car). Jaime was yet to meet a guy who got a hard-on at the prospect of formal and respectable sex.

 

There was still more stuff reclining on the shelves in here than in her actual apartment. Which was understandable, considering she spent a vast amount of her personal time camping at the station, pulling all-nighters writing down reports and sweating over secondary case files everyone else lacked the nerve to delve into. Not Tarth. She always relished those quiet challenges, going the extra mile. She often had him denounce sleep and aid her in taking on the countless stacks of written evidence, connecting dots in the strange hours between dusk and dawn. Jaime grudgingly admitted that after a certain point, he'd stopped hating it.

 

Today was the first time he was setting foot into the premises without an irritable macaroni-haired head lifting up from the piles of work lined up on the desk, scowling about his tardiness or making dry remarks about his untucked shirt. As much as she always pushed his buttons, it felt… empty, without her in, waiting to tackle the day's work together.

 

Jaime went for the research drawer and started pulling out case files, concentrating on the words so that his brain didn't rummage them.

 

"The shooting of Ros Winters, the strangulation of that Irri girl, Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark's suicides… These are all solved cases," he muttered, memories of the real events, the real action behind most of those folders flooding his mind, parching his throat in a weird way.

 

"Maybe she doesn't keep her current files here," Lancel tried, surprising Jaime by taking some form of initiative. "I mean, she was on to something pretty major, right? She couldn't have it lying around in plain sight, they'd have her head for it."

 

Jaime cocked an eyebrow at his cousin. "Well look at you, just itching for that detective promotion. That was pretty perceptive, cousin. Well, for you at least." He tried a few more drawers, even took a gander at the private files on her laptop. Nothing. "OK, Lancel, tell the chief you're taking the evening off."

 

Lancel swallowed noisily. A good punch in the nose couldn't have gotten his displeasure across more clearly. "Why?"

 

"Because I'll be needing a driver and a scapegoat and I'd say you're an adequate blend of both."

 

* * *

 

Lancel was no Schumacher, that was for sure. In fact, there was room for doubt he'd even make a decent community driver in case his glamorous cop career didn't exactly carry off.

 

Back in the day, before he'd lost a hand and mostly denounced driving (he'd rather have Cersei scoff at him than get an automatic like a kid needing fucking training wheels), Jaime would have broken every speed limit and street sign regulation to hear a shocked gasp spill from Cersei's pretty painted lips. For a blissful few years while they were in college away from Dad's bullshit, they'd been a bonafide pair of yuppie adrenaline junkies, rich and reckless enough to take on this new city of angels. Neither of them believed in seat belts, but they believed in speeding and shoving dollar bills into the pockets of angry cops, and in making out before the side window had fully rolled up to shield them from pesky onlookers.

 

He'd been a natural. Nothing quite matched taking his sister for a drive across town at night after they'd both flunked their midterms. Even when she would crawl up into his lap and stroke him through his pants as he weaved and swung across two lanes to the accompaniment of beeping and honking, he liked to think he'd never made her feel unsafe with him.

 

Then there was Lancel, who managed to drive at 30 miles per hour on a freeway and still make it feel like taking a ride through hell's scariest places. The kid had almost run an old lady over on her way out of Starbucks, forgot to use his turn signal twice, resulting in a descant of screeching brakes and swearing, not to mention he somehow clipped a side view mirror on a mailbox while he'd spurred the car out of the parking lot.

 

Jaime certainly hoped he'd make a finer patsy than that, his cousin.

 

"So… How's Cersei?" Lancel asked tentatively, an odd little question, even though on all accounts he should only be watching the road.

 

Jaime shrugged. "She just buried her husband this afternoon. She's deeply traumatized."

 

Lancel chuckled incredulously. "Seriously?"

 

If not even Lancel was buying it, then no one was. Cersei's hatred for Robert had never been a subtle thing but this much public notice of her deteriorated marriage could not sit well with his sister.

 

"Fine, she's happy as a clam," Jaime admitted, much more lightly than he felt about the whole thing. "Rocks the hell out of that glowy thing that comes with widowhood."

 

Lancel nodded his head. He seemed nervous. "Does she… does she ask about me?"

 

_The only question I've ever heard her ask about you is 'Who's Lancel?'._

 

"Nope."

 

"You sure? I thought she'd notice if I was gone," his cousin mumbled stiffly, cursing with little originality when he nearly got pushed off the road by a speeding jeep to the left.

 

"My sister pays attention to suits, not people."

 

Lancel licked his lips, unable to wipe the emotion from his face quickly enough for Jaime to quite pin it on his imagination. "Yeah, I… I guess she does."

 

Jaime would ask his cousin what that was all about but then there was a cat in the middle of the street which clearly overestimated Lancel's ability to swerve on time, and then there wasn't much of anything except for bangs and curses.

 

* * *

 

Tarth's flat was emptier than Lancel's head. Jaime'd forgotten just how little she kept in here. It pretty much consisted of a bare dining room, a bed and a shower.  _Not much to divide between two lives when you only have the one. Shit, Tarth._  The only thing that indicated this was her home and not a vacated place up for sale was a charter for outstanding contribution to the law enforcement hanging on a wall, the one she'd received following her detective promotion. Tucked between the frame and the wall was a single creasy picture of the two of them accepting their medals after cracking the Ros Winters case. The sight of it made something hitch hard in Jaime's throat, and he backpedalled out of the building as quickly as possible.

 

Never did he think he'd find himself happy to be in a car with Lancel again.

 

"Get us to the storage room," Jaime implored. "Where it happened. I want to take a look."

 

Lancel didn't seem happy. Not one bit. Fortunately, Jaime didn't care. "Did you find anything?"

 

Jaime gave his cousin a look. "If I'd found anything, do you think I'd be returning to your vehicle telling you to drive me to the crime scene? Contrary to what someone with a bad sense of humor has led you to believe, cousin, you're not that great a company."

 

Lancel pouted a little, but started the engine. Jaime's phone rang. An unregistered number. Odd. He picked up, ready to tell any commercial rep to go suck a dick.

 

"Hello. Is this Mr. Lannister?" a female voice gushed from the other end, barely concealing the underlining tenseness that prickled beneath the film of politeness. Not a salesman vulture, then.

 

'Mr. Lannister'. No one had called him that since he was twelve. Dad was the mister with a capital M. Jaime got to be the big bro, or J, or just Lannister. He'd left all the complicated labels to Cersei and Dad a long time ago.

 

"It's his son. Who's calling?"

 

"I, uh, my name's Dorcas. I'm your nephew's daytime sitter? Anyway, it's past eleven and I have not been able to get in touch with your sister. My shift ended almost three hours ago and she didn't tell me where to drop off her son for the evening. He's… he's hungry, sir, and he's asking about his mommy."

 

Jaime sighed, smacking his face. So his sister wasn't with Tommen like he'd hoped. It wasn't like her to be careless with her children. If anything, she seemed to always cling to them devoutly and haunt their every step like a tigress, especially in light of Joff's death. Something must've really gone up in smoke on her end to provoke this.

 

"Do you know where my sister is now?"

 

"No, sir, but I did see her take her leave from Lioness Publications a couple of hours ago. She seemed… distressed."

 

_A nice way of saying strung out._

 

"She didn't happen to mention where she was going?"

 

"No. I think she was in a hurry to be someplace, though."

 

Of course she'd be in a hurry. Cersei always geared up on her way to bad decisions. Fuck. Now he couldn't even pretend to believe she  _might_  be steering clear of trouble.

 

He'd call her but he didn't think his ear would take another  _try again later_ without exploding into bloody bits. Shit. He couldn't worry about that too, right now.

 

"So bring Tommen to her house," Jaime said into the phone, quietly enough so that Lancel's perked ear couldn't pick up on the conversation. "She has a night nurse too, doesn't she?"

 

"I tried but no one is answering the door," the sitter sighed. "Mrs. Lannister isn't picking up her cell phone either, and you're the only contact she's left me, so…"

 

"When did you check on the house?"

 

"About an hour ago."

 

"So check again. She might've come home."

 

"With all due respect, sir, my shift ended  _three hours_  ago. Is it alright if I drop off Tommen at your place?"

 

Jaime blinked. As if he'd know what to do with the kid.  _My son._ "What? No, fuck no, I'm not home at the moment. Just… just take him to Tyrion's. My brother. Our brother."

 

There was a considerable pause, and then, "…Are you sure about this?"

 

"He's the boy's uncle. He's reliable… ish."

 

"Your sister won't be happy about this. I don't want to lose my job."

 

"I'll say it was my idea. I'll say I ordered you to. Don't worry. Just get it done."

 

Jaime hung up before the woman had a chance to retaliate.

 

He refused to meet Lancel's inquisitive side eye for a while.

 

"Step it up, Lance," Jaime urged breezily when they came off the highway at the lurid speed of 45 miles per hour. "Chop-chop. What's with that face, Lance? OK, Lancel. Definitely Lancel. Lancel the Destroyer."

 

"Don't mock me!"

 

Jaime shook his head, smiling sadly. He'd die on this job, his cousin.

 

"Oh look, we're here. See? I knew you'd step it up for your beloved cousin. And you didn't think you could get us here in one piece. Now if you could just park us over there without scraping the dumpster... Aw, that's alright. There's always next time."

 

Jaime explained very slowly what was required of Lancel. His cousin blinked, paled, and shook his head.

 

"I don't wanna die," Lancel sniveled, the pathetic catch of his voice mercifully swept by the wind bursting in through the open window.

 

"Well, cuz, you're gonna have to," Jaime chirped serenely, not much venom in his voice. "It's inevitable, like taking a shit. Though with some luck you're only gonna have to take that shit today." He sighed when his cousin's expression only darkened and sank. "For fuck's sake, kid, I'm not asking you to fire a gun for me. Just talk a little to your colleagues. Worst case scenario, you'll get fired. OK, fine, you're not happy about that. But imagine the glory... imagine all the pretty promotions that'll be thrown your way if you become known as one of the two officers who rescued a captured detective. You like the sound of that? Good. Now get that ass moving before I use it as a boot warmer. Come on, out you go. There's a good lad."

 

The wind was roaring in their faces and he couldn't claim for sure, but it was as if a very naughty word had just escaped his cousin's plump and blowzy lips.

 

* * *

 

Lancel was narrating his lines well enough to the forensics moseying along behind the restricting yellow tape, even at this hour putting up a show of collecting evidence when they were really just guarding the place from prying eyes. Jaime listened to the conversation from a respectful distance. Neither a fighter nor a thinker, but the boy was arguably a decent talker.

 

_Officer L. Lannister. Yeah, I bring you your coffee every Thursday. Aha, great ball game last week! You guys were pretty darn good. Anyway, I must've forgotten my wallet somewhere around here this afternoon… Silly me, yeah. Nah, my buddy and I are just gonna dive in and grab it. He's a cop too, don't worry. His badge? Well…_

 

Jaime rolled his eyes when Lancel glared at him at a loss what to do. Scratch that about the boy being a smooth talker. Lancel was officially the most talentless creature on Earth.

 

"That's alright, I'll wait outside." Jaime smiled thinly as a dozen suspicious eyes dug into him. He glanced obliquely towards the crepuscular interior of the abandoned storage. A regular warehouse in the middle of an unobtrusive residential area. Surrounded by shacks people had either vacated or packed in with boxes labeled X-Mas and Baby Stuff and Fuckables. Then there was this odd little room. Where Tarth's bloodied gun lay discarded.

 

Jaime kicked Lancel forward, hissed in his ear, "Scrap me some evidence."

 

Lancel blinked. "Me?"

 

"No Lancel my Pilates instructor. Yes you. Now get your ass in there."

 

"But—I can't—I don't—I'm not a detective!"

 

"I'm sadly aware of that. Look, I don't expect you to pull a Sherlock in there, just get me  _something_ to work with. Here, calm down. I bet you can hear your own heart pumping blood like crazy into your head, am I right? Remember that's the sound of an upcoming promotion, Lancel. Go do the job. Earn it. Make it happen. That's all I ask of you."

 

"O-OK…"

 

Jaime watched his cousin hind his way into the perimeter, feeling skeptical at best about his odds.

 

He leaned against the side of Lancel's car, breathing out into the cool of the night. His thoughts went to Cersei again. And Tyrion, too. It was like someone had set a timer in his heart to clench every few hours or so, thinking about either one of his siblings. He wondered what they were doing now. Tyrion was probably—definitely—drunk. His brother seemed to have developed a speculative theory about avoiding hangovers by refusing to sober up. Chances were, he had a girl on his dick too.  _He deserves a real woman_ , Jaime thought ruefully.  _A woman who'd love him. Like that girl from back then..._  He didn't like to think about that. As for Cersei... well. His recent talk with Tommen's sitter had left him with several scenarios for her current occupation, each as dreary as the next.  _Which's it gonna be this time, Cers?_ His sister was always generous with her bullshit. So many tortures to choose from. It could be her endless schemes, or her screwed up ideas of self-medication, or perhaps she was crashing sleazy bars and acquiring filthy fingerprints that had no place on her. Jaime didn't know which of the three got him more worked up. Probably that last bit.

 

What the hell had happened to them?

 

It seemed like yesterday when they could spend a day in the same house without scratching each other's eyes out. Without Jaime fearing a lethal substance might be found floating in his brother's drink, or a mysterious pillow clamped over his face at night.

 

Not that they'd ever really gotten along. No, but at least they'd managed to get through the day without trying to kill each other. For the most part.

 

Truth was they were always at odds.  _They were born fighting, your children_ , he'd overheard aunt Genna say to his father once.  _Too much of you in them all._  That last part didn't make much sense, but he could agree with the former. From their earliest days, they were constantly driving each other up the wall, somehow, always.

 

Except on Christmas. None of the sibling rivalry guidelines applied to Christmas. They'd always liked Christmas Eve, as teens, all three of them. Joanna Lannister had passed around the winter holidays, so it was the one time of the year when all bad blood was cast aside and the Lannisters resembled a real 90s family for a couple of dinners.

 

As a rule, Jaime had been given free rein to watch sports games without being urged to study, and Tyrion had been allowed to help around the kitchen, even whip up some brownies of his own. Though that particular custom had been unanimously outlawed following what would later become known as The Christmas That Never Happened, wherein Tyrion had slipped  _something_  into Cersei's and Dad's brownies unbeknownst to anyone in the kitchen. Jaime would always cherish that night as one of the most hilarious things to have ever happened to their family. Cersei had hiccupped and sung a butchered version of All I Want For Christmas—badly—in front of a jaw-dropped table, Tywin had slipped something gratuitously homophobic in his opening dinner speech, and—to the family's uttermost horror and shock—both father and daughter had excused themselves and clashed in front of the bathroom as soon as desert had been served.

 

Other than that one priceless incident, family Christmases had been nice in a low-key sort of way. Father still wasn't smiling but at least for a few days his face didn't resemble a long, ever-frowning bust of a Greek philosopher. Even Cersei could be found grinning under a mountain of presents, treating her expensive new acquisitions with care and glee for a whole of five minutes before growing bored of them and throwing them at her brothers, more playfully than spitefully, just this once.

 

She'd always insist on receiving gifts from both him and Tyrion, and she'd taken a firm stand that they had to be good, or else there'd be punishment. It used to be their own little tradition. Jaime found it comical that his brother usually ended up buying presents on both their behalves. Jaime just seemed to run out of ideas as soon as he started trying to come up with them. Tyrion was always the attention payer. Jaime didn't mind giving up that role to his brother at all.

 

When Cersei had found a collector's edition of Nirvana's  _In Utero_ under the Christmas tree one year, she'd squeed and looped her arms around Jaime's neck. He still remembered the sound of her blonde head snapping when he'd laughed and pointed towards Tyrion. His brother had tried hiding behind the fireplace with an embarrassed look on his face. Cersei had been quiet for a moment, then she'd walked over and given their brother a small pat on the head (they'd both been this much taller than him already).

 

Jaime sighed.

 

The Christmas following Joff's death, Tyrion had tried sending a gift to their sister. Jaime had been there when she'd received the unlucky delivery. He'd been there when she'd burned the carton box without so much as looking at the contents.

 

"Much on your mind?"

 

Jaime startled. One of the forensics had stepped out of the restricted perimeter and had just leaned on the car next to him, unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. He was young, not as young as Lancel but still, there were more twenties in him than there were thirties. It was too dark outside for much to be made out of anything, but Jaime could still tell the guy was a looker. He had dark hair and a pair of blue eyes that shone like gems in the night.

 

"Got a lighter?" the man asked, grinning to reveal a set of sharp white teeth. "Sorry, you look like the kind of person who might carry around that sort of thing with him."

 

Jaime inclined his head. "You got that right." He brought the flickering flame to the man's lips, let him touch the tip of his cigarette to the lick of the fire, suck in the heat.

 

"Thanks," the man chuckled. "Nasty habit but I get real jumpy unless I've had my fix. Bad for the job. Bad for the ladies. It's a lose-lose, really."

 

"Oh I doubt that." Jaime nudged the man. A couple of years ago he might've sneered at anyone who'd approach him like that. Now he found himself grateful for the distraction. "A guy like you, you must be quite a catch for certain girls."

 

The cigarette glow illuminated half a lazy grin on the man's obscured face. "You're far too kind. I must say you're not so shabby yourself."

 

Jaime shook his head. "Ah. 'Not so shabby'," he repeated. "You know you've grown old when a twenty-something guy is talking to you like you're his dad."

 

"There now," the man drawled, a sympathetic smile on his face. "I was thinking more the cool uncle."

 

Jaime paused, then shrugged. "I could live with that."

 

"It's weird though, isn't it?"

 

"What is?"

 

"It's taking your friend forever to find his wallet in there."

 

"You know how kids are. He couldn't find his own ass in the dark with two hands and a flashlight."

 

They both chuckled. "Still," the man continued, mischief in his voice, "I must admit I envy him the tiniest bit."

 

Jaime couldn't think of a plausible reason for someone like this to envy a snot like Lancel, no matter how hard he tried. "Why?"

 

The man discarded the gray stump of his dead cigarette to the floor. Squashed it like a bug with his sole. "You don't think very highly of him. That's understandable. You see him as a person. And it's true he isn't anything remarkable in and of himself. Ah, but there's so much I might have done with that last name of his."

 

"Last names aren't everything," Jaime said, bitterly.  _As if I'd know._  "You seem like the efficient kind. I bet you'll still end up someplace better than an incompetent Lannister."

 

The man cocked his head, as if he was about to let him in on a secret. "That's very kind of you to say," he whispered. "But I'd suggest you bet your missing hand first."

 

Jaime looked the man askance. It was too damn dark for him to have noticed. Something about this was off. Or perhaps Cersei's paranoia was finally starting to rub off on him. The last thing he wanted was his sister's tendency to see monsters at every turn complicating things further for him.

 

"Who are you?" Jaime asked, flatly.

 

"Oh, I'm just a nobody, really. My dad's kind of a somebody. But with a small s." He wiggled his little finger in illustration. "Like a pinkie. He thinks our family deserves better than that. I hope to help him."

 

Lancel flew out of the storage room, a big proud smirk on his face.

 

"What's with the grin?" Jaime scoffed, crinkling his nose. Something about a happy Lancel just put him in a foul mood.

 

"I know where she is," Lancel beamed. "I know where they've taken her. She's at—"

 

Jaime frowned as he watched Lancel crumple to the pavement, eyes bulged, face-first. His body convulsed with what Jaime recognized as the aftereffects of an electroshock jolting through a frail system.

 

Sure enough, the weapon itself flashed in the hand of the forensics guy. Looking over his face, Jaime didn't need his detective training to tell something about him had changed. His jaw was set like a piranha's, pulling back to showcase the bottom row of his teeth. His blue eyes were suddenly filled to the hilt with that savage something Jaime had only caught hints of, initially.

 

Jaime's hand dove for his gun.

 

The man smiled sadly. "Oh Mr. Lannister. I so wish you hadn't seen that."


	6. Tyrion II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a dwarf entertains a whore, a nephew, and some siblicide-oriented ideas.

VI.

 

Shae was in the middle of making him forget why he’d reasoned with her to roll up her thong bikinis and sheer lace rompers and evacuate her buns up to his private condo when the doorbell rang.

 

Tyrion groaned. He was seriously thinking of putting up a foot mat at the threshold with a profound message for any bloodsucker that bothered to come by at all. _Sorry for the inconvenience. Dwarves get blowjobs too._ He was willing to sacrifice a limb and host a formal dinner for his father’s entourage if only to watch the great lion’s face as he stepped over the damn thing.

 

 _Ding-dong._ It had a strangled sound, his doorbell, as though its battery was somewhat drained and yet it persisted in its job of giving him surprise headaches. Tyrion was starting to falter, or the part of him that was of any consequence anyway. Shae purred and redoubled her efforts, as if it was an extra challenge she was willing to take on. Tyrion squirmed, helplessly spellbound. He swore that girl could still have him glued to a chair if the damn house was on fire.

 

A third ring, a prolonged one. The bell wrangled with the final octaves, resulting in a screech more horrible than a drunk Cersei’s impression of Mariah Carey. _Well fuck me blue._ No way in hell he was keeping that boner, now that his sister had elbowed her way into his thoughts, uninvited as per usual. He could hear his own miserable moans as he buried his face in his palms, growling or whining or weeping, or it could be all three for all he knew.

 

Tyrion considered his options.

 

Three rings. One was for taxers. Hookers. Pizza delivery. Two was for persistent dirt diggers on the great Lannister magnate, and of course what better place to start than the personification of the family landfill, though it had been a while since any of those had bothered with him in earnest. Then there was three. Three was for something urgent and nasty, something he probably hadn’t accounted for.

 

 _Ah. Surprises._ How he liked surprises. 

 

He cursed, a half-hearted plea for his dick to be withdrawn from the sweet oasis of Shae’s mouth.

 

Later, he’d ponder what might’ve happened had she disregarded his entreaties like she often did. He liked to think he would have proceeded to peacefully come all over her mischievous little face. A glorious memory to take to his grave indeed. Christ knew he didn’t have many of those.

 

Alas, she listened to him for once.

 

With some difficulty, Tyrion hopped off his small personalized armchair (the good folks over at IKEA had redirected him to this wonderful custom manufacturer after he’d politely refused to be sold their children’s furniture), already missing the rush in his groin.

 

He ran a stiff hand through his ruffled hair. Gave Shae a mitigating pat on the head as he trotted around her kneeling form.

 

Sometimes he wondered what beef the big guy up there had with him. All the time, really. His siblings could produce three children who on all religious accounts should catch fire when exposed to a Bible, but God forbid a dwarf tried to get a suck-off.   

 

Maybe that’s what the whole botched situation with Joff was all about. _Doing God’s work._ Tyrion chuckled to himself, bitter and not funny at all. God must be one hell of a desperate guy, if he’d resort to using _his_ help of all living creatures.

 

Tyrion sighed, resigning to his fate. He rubbed his temples as the doorbell kept whining. He felt like the damn button was hardwired to his brain or something.

 

With his luck it was probably some stray left-wing human rights activist, too. Although he deemed it a bit late for one of those particular oddballs to be making a pass at the hideous son and most sympathetic cause of a rich businessman.

 

Perhaps he was being too pessimistic. Being the black sheep of a high society family did leave you with a fair amount of scars. It was likely that the blood still hadn’t swirled from his dick back up to his brain. Who knew? Maybe it was those butt plugs from EBay at long last. He didn’t care much for experimenting but Shae would be thrilled.

 

It occurred to him it might be a good idea to bundle himself back in his pants just as he was reaching for the doorknob. He got rid of the residual erection by thinking very hard of Tywin Lannister doing the haka dance in his undies, a useful little trick he’d taught himself back as a teenager when he’d jerk off at the most awkward of places during family reunions, and his sessions had stood a fair chance of being abruptly cut short.

 

Tyrion nudged the door open, eyes automatically set to search for a visitor skyward. Surprisingly enough, his guest was not that far from his own modest stature.

 

Never did Tyrion imagine he’d find himself so thoroughly spooked by the sight of his seven-year-old nephew’s adorable face randomly popping up on his doorstep.

 

He politely excused himself, tripping back behind the screen of the door. Then he was scrambling to kick away the dozen condoms he’d ambitiously laid out on the couch, muttering for Shae to quit toying with her clit and put on some clothes.

 

“What’s wrong, my lion?” she purred, that throaty, disarming sound she made whenever she was on the verge of pouting. “Are you ashamed of me?”

 

“No,” Tyrion shot out defensively. Bit on the meat of his cheek as he gave the matter some actual thought. “Yes.” He sighed, watching a pretty frown settle in-between those thick dark eyebrows. “I’m not _ashamed_ ashamed. Just, you know… _ashamed._ Small _a_. Look, under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t mind dancing naked with you on my front porch if that’s what you asked. It’d be stupid and we’d go to jail, well, at least I would, or if I miraculously managed to get away with it my father would personally lock me in a dumpster for the rest of my life, but I’d do it. For you. You know it’s true.”  

 

Shae crossed her arms, causing her small pear-shaped breasts to swell and almost spill from her pink-and-black lacy bra.

 

“So why are you all worried now, if you love me so much and don’t care what others have to say about it?”

 

“Now’s a bit different,” Tyrion tried his half-assed explanation. He grinned up at her, offering the best sheepish apology his mismatched eyes could give. _How do I say it without playing the asshole?_ The thing about eloquence was, it was never really there when you needed it most. _Ask me to tell whore jokes at a Christmas table, on the other hand, and watch me own the damn floor. Shit._ He hated his wits for betraying him, when it should be his dick he cursed the most. “Just… just get dressed and go play with your jewels upstairs, OK? I’ll come get you later.”

 

He ignored her hurt expression with a heavy heart. _I’m sorry, Shae. I’ve another child to worry about tonight. Props to my crazy sister._

 

Tyrion instinctively reached for a roaming bottle of Glenrothes 2001 Vintage at the thought of his blonde backstabbing Louboutin abusing Cruella of a sister, drowning a curse in a lake of parky liquor.

 

_Dear fucking siblings, that was tacky of you, real tacky. Dumping your kid on the brother who blew your last one to hell… you must well and truly be at the end of your rope._

 

He had to hand it to Cersei, her fingers were proving to be long and sticky, more so than he’d given them credit for. Once they got ahold of your scalp, they were incredibly difficult to shake off. _Till death do us part, huh, sis…_

 

It might sound like some far-fetched paranoid bullshit if he tried explaining it out loud. But even when she did nothing, his sister, it somehow came back around to bite him in the ass.

 

When he was five, she’d left her doll on the floor and his pug had ended up snuffing it at the vet emergency, in his best effort to cough out the largest mash of synthetic hair and plastic replicas of human body parts ever swallowed by a dog his size. As a high-school junior, he’d had to show up to school with a fractured nose and a real shiner, sequential to being smacked by a door when a certain college dropout had shown up on Daddy’s doorstep all broke and jobless and ready to wash feet and suck toes to get back into the family’s good graces. And of course the worst one, when he was twelve and his recently crowned prom queen sister’s blood-soaked pads had caused a clogging to the central plumbing that had required a highly resourceful repairman supervisor, preferably of dwarf size. _Well, at least she’s not preggers,_ Tyrion had told his father, in his small act of revenge. _Which is quite the miracle, considering how familiar most of the football team is with her... cheerleading techniques._ The comment had earned him an icy stare and some extra work hours, but Cersei had been removed from the cheerleading team approximately three days later. That wasn’t the end of it, though. There never _was_ an end to his rotten break with her.

 

And now this. It was very much like his sister to inadvertently ruin his perfectly reasonable plans for a stress-relieving evening of debauchery with a whore he was growing to love.

 

In all fairness he doubted very much that Cersei had any idea this was being thrown down into _his_ of all laps. If she did, she’d be storming the place with a nail file and an eyelash curler if that was what it would take to wrest Tommen back into her toxic care.

 

No, this was all his brother’s work. _Damn you,_ Jaime. Every now and then, Tyrion would regret the love he had for his sibling.

 

Working his throat free of knots, Tyrion reopened the door, poking his head back out into the cool of the night. He listened to the poor sitter hovering over Tommen as she gently covered his nephew’s ears and babbled on about Cersei’s sudden hysterical episode (he shouldn’t be surprised, really, after all this time—being dismissed was never something his sister handled with particular grace, even as children, her damn ego and her goddess complex always made for an explosive stew), about her short-lived conversation with Jaime, about the risks, her job, those obligatory broccoli in Tommen’s salad.

 

Tyrion nodded slackly through all of it.  

 

What else was left to do? The choice had been made for him. _Damn you, Jaime, you dog, damn you for knowing me so well._

 

At the end of the day, there was very little he wouldn’t do for his big brother. The only one who’d ever treated him with any respect, any trace of sibling concern. And Tommen, too. He was still fond of the boy. Christ knew he could use a night away from his mother’s reeking bullshit. Still, what Cersei would do when she found out her son had spent the night in the custody of the brother whom she blamed most if not all her misfortunes on…

 

_Fuck that. I’m doing it._

 

It was like taking a shot too many, really. He’d worry about his hangover of a sister in the morning.

 

Tommen was a sweet kid, and Tyrion would see to it that he ate his damn broccoli and went to bed with his teeth brushed. Cersei could raise a whole army of bureaucrats and bitches in high heels to go on some sort of messed up witch hunt after him for all he cared. If his house suddenly became the target of a massive yet stupidly planned out terrorist attack during the night, at least he’d know who to hold responsible in his farewell note.  

 

Tyrion chuckled to himself, imagining the words, bloodied and splayed on a burnt piece of paper.  

 

_Sweet sister,_

 

_You’re supposed to blow up a house AFTER you’ve made sure there are no gas pipelines nearby. Of course I must forgive you this one slight since we both know how you would spend the better part of your physics classes kneeling under Jaime’s desk. Anyway, congrats on killing us both! Now neither one of us gets to spend time with your son. Race you to hell’s booth for special service?_

 

_Love and hate,_

 

_Your dead brother_

 

Tyrion suppressed a sour smile. At least his late nephew would be there, the little shit, probably as personnel-in-training or something.

 

The sitter handed him the emergency contact list Cersei had left (herself _, J. Lannister_ and 911), and walked back to the cab to scrape a grey, damp-proof sack the size of a hog. The way she was expertly handling the trunk and hauling the luggage like a professional concierge, Tyrion didn’t dare offer her any help. Then the zipper came undone with a mocking purr and a kaleidoscope of stuff went poking out like it’d come from the fucking Narnia wardrobe, and then the the sitter was explaining to him what was what in a rather strained tone of voice.

 

Tyrion nodded, attempting to look reliable. He cleared his throat as he regarded the small kitbag of lifesaving child provisions such as Lego collectibles, various expensive remote control droids and cairns of comic books that was being dumped at his feet, trying not to seem overly intimidated by the fact that the whole thing stood a good chance of outweighing him.

 

“I think we can manage. Sorry for your trouble,” he assured the sitter towards the end of her educational talk. “Should we expect you tomorrow, Miss…?”

 

“Dorcas,” the woman breathed, face—ever so dryly—going through the motions of a smile. The hasty introduction struck Tyrion as that of a conscientious woman who wanted to go home. He didn’t blame her. Hell, if _he_ was ever forced to work for his sister he’d be more than a tad impatient to abdicate the front lines and retreat to a nice cellar stacked full of drinkable things, too. “Just Dorcas. And yes, my shift starts at noon. Should I pick him up from your place again?”

 

Tyrion frowned, scratching his side, the short shoots of his newly grown stubble protesting beneath the drag of his fingers. “Noon? I can’t watch him till noon, I have an early briefing at—you know what, never mind.”

 

All of a sudden, the prospect of bringing Tommen to the office building of Lannister Inc., just the spine of a street away from Cersei’s high-flown kingdom of hell didn’t seem like such a great idea. Chances were his sister would be incapacitated for the day, but he couldn’t risk one of her messenger lap dogs (he swore those vampires were constantly whizzing in and out of the perimeter) sniffing out Tommen’s whereabouts.

 

Ah, hell. One minute into this good uncle one-act and already adjustments to plans needed to be made.

 

“Just… You can pick him up from here, sure,” Tyrion resigned with a miserable twitch of his lips. The grateful exhale that left Dorcas’ chest considerably compressed was not lost on him, though he made no mention of it as he winked at Tommen, far more casually than he felt on the inside. “We’ve a lot of catching up to do, hm?”

 

With that, he beckoned for his nephew to come in. For some reason, the door felt exceptionally heavy as he was pulling it shut.

 

* * *

 

Several things became clear in the first few minutes of Tommen’s overnight stay—one, the boy was _not_ going to eat his broccoli without resistance; two, Tyrion’s kid-friendly jokes were nowhere near as funny as his adult ones; and three, apparently his fairly large Beverly Hills home did not contain a single decent toy to nudge between Tommen’s down-in-the-mouth face and the table it drooped over.

 

“Come on, now,” Tyrion cheered. His voice sounded overly injected with frolic even to his own ears. _Great. It’s not enough the kid’s supposed father just died, now you’ve gone and made him cringe too._ It was too late to back out of the stage play now though, unless he wanted whatever shreds of dignity he had left melting in that perfect mimeo of both his siblings’ eyes. “I’m your cool uncle, remember? Show me your party teeth. Fine, no party teeth. Regular teeth. Any teeth. Eat something, at least. You love Chinese, don’t you? I’m sure I recall your mother mentioning it at a certain point.”

 

“That was Joffy,” Tommen muttered, poking his noodles (they’d both given up on the salad) in clumsy, streaky stabs that entirely missed the point of the chopsticks. “The Spaghetti monster’s asleep,” he announced indolently, like it was almost the most obvious thing in the world. “Where’s Mommy?”

 

Tyrion chewed his chicken rice emphatically, buying himself some vital seconds to think. It was too damn early for that question. He’d thought he’d have more time to prepare.

 

“How old were you again?” he asked finally, looking his nephew askance. “Seven?”

 

“And a half,” Tommen corrected jauntily.  

 

The spook of pre-teenage Cersei’s notorious obstinacy shot across the boy’s face as he perked his chin up defiantly, the pride of those extra six months shining brightly in his eyes. Tyrion blinked, staring at those round pools, half-expecting them to enliven with a gleeful rush of light, like a blonde girl kicking her baby brother’s toys into smithereens.

 

The ill will never came though. It was just Tommen, with his big blue eyes. Tyrion would’ve liked to think they were more innocent than Cersei’s ever were. (It’d be a lie.)  

 

Tyrion cleared his throat. _Fuck._ Let’s see. How _did_ one explain the concept of detox, or late-night scheming, or drunkenly licking wounds and twin brothers, or whatever the hell it was his sister was up to these days to a seven-year-old?

 

“Your Mommy, she’s, uh… She’s at a special sleepover.”

 

“A sleepover?” Tommen asked, more curiously than incredulously.

 

Tyrion decided to stick to his story to the bitter end, like a good uncle-soldier defending the innocence of a nephew who barely knew him, and the dignity of a sister who wanted him dead. “Yeah. You’ve had those, haven’t you?”

 

Tommen didn’t seem enthusiastic. “I don’t really like sleepovers. Mommy says I have to, when she sends me to her friends’ homes to play with their children, but I don’t. I like to sleep in my room with my Gameboy and my books. They help me sleep when Mommy doesn’t have time to tuck me in and say goodnight.”

 

“Listen,” Tyrion started, a strange feeling clamping the pith of his stomach, “why don’t you go brush your teeth and you can have a snack in bed while you watch your favorite… ah, whatever it is you watch before bedtime, hm? How’s that sound?”

 

Tommen sulked. “The Power Rangers aren’t on tonight. And Dorcas forgot to bring my Gameboy. I can’t sleep without the Power Rangers _and_ my Gameboy.”

 

Tyrion pursed his lips. _He’s just returned from Robert’s funeral_ , he had to remind himself. _Should I get him to talk about it, try to comfort him?_ The kid didn’t exactly appear to be overwhelmed with emotion, or even curiosity about the otherworldly matters. He was just… Tommen, impassive and sweet as ever. Tyrion wasn’t sure how he felt for this child, who had been acquainted with the death of close relatives so early on it probably made no sense at all in his odd little mind. _I didn’t realize I was a dwarf for a long time_ , he recalled, weirdly detached, _what I’d done to mother._ Everyone just treated him the way they did, and that was the reality he lived in, no questions asked.

 

“Yes, well, she didn’t forget to bring many of your other things,” he found himself saying to his nephew. “Surely you can find _something_ to occupy your time while you drift off to sleep?”

 

Tommen shook his head, lip jutting forward in defiance. “I’m staying up.”

 

Tyrion palmed his face. _Cersei definitely is your mother_. “You _must_ go to bed. You’ve had a long day and I bet you’re tired. It’s already past midnight. I’m sure your mother would be furious if she ever found out you’ve stayed up this late.” He didn’t miss the way the boy wiggled uncomfortably in his chair at the prospect of an enraged Cersei, but it wasn’t his place to interfere with that. It wasn’t. It _wasn’t._ It really wasn’t. “Does your mother get angry a lot, about... stuff?”

 

“No,” Tommen mewled, softly, as if embarrassed by his own words. “When Joffy was here she hugged us more. She took me and Cella to Disneyland and let us take the Jungle Cruise with Uncle Jaime.” Tommen brooded over his noodles with all the blue devils of a pre-school philosopher. “But Cella’s away at that boarding school now and Mommy’s busy ‘cause she’s back from her trip and she’s making the magazine again.” _Ah_ , Tyrion thought. _Her ‘trip’. That’s what they’ve told him._ There was a grain of truth to it, he supposed. “She doesn’t like it when I cry now. She scolded me when I cried for Daddy today. And Uncle Jaime doesn’t come to see us anymore.”

 

Tyrion gulped. He felt like a voyeur, glancing into something that was supposed to stay private even if the kid was talking of his own accord. “You miss him, your uncle Jaime?”

 

Tommen nodded, sniffed a little. “He had time for us. Daddy didn’t.”

 

Tyrion patted his nephew, hand awkwardly resting in the fresh hay of his hair. _Jaime’s hair._ “I’m sure he’ll pay you a visit again one of these days.”

 

“Why don’t _you_ come visit us anymore, uncle?” Tommen blurted out, crinkling his little nose in true Lannister suspicion. _Guess it runs in the family after all._

 

“Do you want me to?”

 

“Mhm,” Tommen affirmed, head bobbing in an enthusiastic nod. “I like playing board games with you. Cella isn’t any good and Joffy just kicked it all away.”

 

“Then I guess I better start showing up again more often, huh,” Tyrion said, grinning sadly. _If only your mother would let me forget I’m a murderous little beast for a day._ He rose from his chair, suddenly unable to stand the immobility any longer. “Let’s see… I’m pretty sure I have a Battle Sheep laying around somewhere in here. What do you say? We can play tomorrow morning.”

 

Tommen’s eyes lit up. “We can play some now!”

 

Tyrion groaned. “I really walked into this one, didn’t I? Heck… OK, kiddo, one round and then you go full mummy on the bed upstairs. I mean it.”

 

“Five rounds.”

 

“Two.”

 

“Four.”

 

“Three it is.”

 

Tyrion shook his head and grinned to himself as he climbed over a chair, reaching up a shelf to retrieve the rectangular box that lay snuggled in-between a coppice of old and rare liquor bottles.

 

The way the kid bargained, he might prove to be a better successor to Robert’s position than anyone might have ever suspected.

 

* * *

 

Four rounds later, Tommen showed no outer intention of upholding his end of the deal. Tyrion scratched his nose, eyes darting towards the wooden cuckoo perched on the wall clock ever so stealthily. It was 1:30 and he was seriously beginning to question the depth of his uncle reliability.

 

The image of Shae’s querulous face was poking at the back of his mind, too, growing more and more insistent by the minute. She was keeping quiet for now, but Christ knew quiet did not necessarily equal _good_ with that vixen of a girl. She’d probably exhausted most of the sex toys he had stored away upstairs by now. He hoped she could still be persuaded to have him at least once, but after flirting with the thought for a bit, he decided _he_ was probably too exhausted to get it up.

 

A pathetic dwarf with no sex drive. _Damn, so that’s what life feels like at thirty. But hey folks, there’s perks. Less hair means less hassle over shampoo, plus the elder discounts are just a block away._ It was like a bad middle age commercial slogan, all of it. No, Tyrion thought, he was definitely not old enough to be dealing with that. _I suppose I do understand what married couples kick up a fuss about, though…_ Tending to a child, even a gentle one like Tommen, did take its toll.  

 

“Ah, darn, there you’ve beat me again. I’ve been utterly crushed. Spare your uncle the shame of losing another round. How about we call it a night?”

 

“Two people isn’t any fun,” Tommen rasped.

 

Then his eyes went wide and round, and with uttermost horror Tyrion watched his nephew wave clumsily at something right over his shoulder.

 

He should have gone check up on her sooner. _I was an idiot to think she would sit tight and behave for so long._

 

Tyrion smiled the most frigid smile of his life as his chair creaked away from the table.

 

“Could you wait here for a bit? Your uncle needs to have a chat with his maid.” He turned slowly towards the lingering silhouette gracing his hallway, praying to God she’d at least have her panties on. And a bra, too. A bra would be nice. “His _maid_ should know it’s not polite to interrupt people in the middle of the night,” he intoned pointedly, smile threatening to spill into a full-blown grimace.

 

At least she had some underwear, now that he was looking at her, over her, and she’d thrown on an old T-shirt of Jaime’s, the one his brother had given him as a trophy after winning the high-school football championship in it.

 

Unlike Joffrey, who would have no doubt scrapped together an entire list of questions barked out in the form of demands, Tommen just nodded his head—bless his brother’s bed efforts for gifting Cersei with _one_ normal kid—and dove his nose back into the game manual, eyes eagerly devouring the words as if the carbon box contained scrolls of ancient Tibetan wisdom. _Well_ , Tyrion thought, _suppose he is as normal as they come in our family._

 

Tyrion nudged Shae into the cellar, a tad more roughly than he usually got with her outside of some very specific occasions.

 

“I had. To pee,” came her brisk hiss, cold enough to plant the seeds of some rather uncomfortable images in his head of her taking ice-bitch lessons from his sister.

 

“I seem to recall there’s a bathroom upstairs,” Tyrion huffed through the rocks that were his teeth and tongue.

 

Shae flattened her palm to the inviting incurve of her hip, one of her less sexed battle stances. A single vein throbbed on her freckle-sprayed forehead, sour and demanding of his immediate attention.

 

“It’s _clogged_. You were supposed to unclog it after you were done unclogging _me_ , remember?”

 

Right. That. Tyrion could have smacked himself on the face if he didn’t have a seven-year-old in the adjacent room to explain the edema to. Then again, if the murderous look on Shae’s face was any guide, she might as well take care of that choice for him, too.

 

“Shit. Sorry. Must’ve slipped my mind. I had a lot on my plate, you know,” he shot back, almost but not quite belligerent. Talking to women required a certain degree of spinelessness, you see. Even those you paid by the hour, apparently. “Alright, we can do this. I’m Tywin Lannister’s son and employee. I _can_ have a full-time maid, there’s nothing suspicious about it.” _A gorgeous, eighteen-year-old maid who walks around the house in her underwear. In the middle of the fucking night._ A good thing Tommen paid about as much attention to the world outside his fiction as his mother paid to him these days. “Just act normal, there’s no need to panic.”

 

Shae had to bend at the waist to jab a manicured finger into his undersized chest. “ _I’_ m acting normal, _you_ ’re freaking out. Why are you all thumbs, my lion? He’s just a child.”

 

“A child whose mother hates me and would use any means to knock me into the dirt,” he corrected, catching himself before he’d raised his voice to improvident heights. “She’d take you away from me, if she could, do you understand that?”

 

Shae strode away and then back down towards him, face possessed by a sudden, buckled-down determination. She bracketed his face between her pale hands, small enough to be dwarfed by the size of his head. And then, in the most naively driven tone he’d ever heard, “No one is going to take me away from you. You’re mine and I’m yours, and I’m not going anywhere unless _you_ want me to.”

 

Tyrion exhaled softly. _Stop, stop, you fucking idiot, stop falling for that, that girl..._ That _whore_ , he corrected himself, that beautiful, naive and fierce whore of his… She’d be the end of him. For the time being, he wholeheartedly didn’t care.

 

He gave her half a grin, feeling every bit the frog who needed kissing. Somehow, he doubted he was prince material. _Not even your lips can fix what I am, darling_. _If they could, father would’ve not only let me near a whore but locked me in a room with one ages ago._

 

“Wish someone would tell that to my sister,” he muttered once he trusted his voice again, and even then it came out thinner than he’d hoped, spoiling the effect of his banter, “so she’d stop wasting her time on us and go terrorize some clueless villagers instead.”

 

Shae didn’t laugh. Wits were never her strong suit, and his eccentric jokes often flew right over her. Her mouth stretched though, it did, as she slung her arms over his shoulders, her lips parted, for _him_ , and he watched a sensual, _o-_ like festoon form around that sly simper that reminded him of her scholarship in other areas of life. So she wasn’t an intellectual trove. So what? _Aren’t warm hands and a slick cunt worth more than a sharp, bitter tongue?_

 

He should ask Cersei the next he saw her; it’d give her something to think about while she was slowly aging away from the former, and drinking and scheming her way towards the latter.

 

He walked back into the dining room, Shae casually strolling behind him. They found Tommen as they’d left him, head replaced by the fully unfolded game manual as his little hands kept it up at eye’s level.

 

“Hey buddy, ready to go to bed?”

 

Tommen peered from behind the large piece of colorful paper as if playing peek-a-boo, shaking his head vigorously. “Nu-uh. Oh hi, lady.”

 

“Hi there handsome,” Shae greeted, raising hairs on Tyrion’s neck.

 

“Who are you?” Tommen asked, putting the manual down.

 

Tyrion contemplated his next words carefully. If he acted strangely around her then Tommen would definitely pick up on it, even if he didn’t necessarily understand it all. Besides, Tommen seemed to still love and trust his mother, even if that trust was beginning to dwindle. He’d be talking in front of her one day, maybe not tomorrow or the day after, but then the subject would come into mention and even Cersei would be able to put two and two together. One way or another, the news would probably worm its way back to his sister.

 

_Fuck. I really need to sell this. Play it as average as humanly possible._

 

“That’s Shae… Sheila. My maid, remember? She was just heading back upstairs.”

 

“Ha! Mommy’s receptionist lady is also called Sheila,” Tommen exclaimed, mussing and teasing his hair as he spoke. “The current one. They never stay long. I really liked the last one. She always gave me candy.”

 

“Well then your mommy should have asked you before she gave her the boot, shouldn’t she?” Shae purred. Tyrion was not liking the sugary tone she was taking with the kid, not one bit. “Your mommy should listen to a handsome little fella like you.”

 

Tommen smiled. “You’re nice. And you talk! Mommy’s maids don’t talk. Unless they come to ask us what we want for dinner. And they never stay over for the night like you do. Or are you a night nanny? We have a night nanny but she’s always gone by the time we wake up. I used to think she might be a ghost but Mommy said that’s silly. That ghosts don’t charge you $30 per night. I suppose she knows more about ghosts than I do…”

 

Shae frowned. Helplessly, Tyrion watched the highly unlikely exchange unfold before him. “Now that’s just cruel. You won’t treat your maid like that when you’re all grown up, will you?”

 

“Nope. I’d play with her and buy her stuffies.”

 

“Aren’t you a sweetheart?” Tyrion nearly jumped when Shae ran her fingers up his neck. “Take care, _Mr. Lannister_ , I might be switching employers in a few years,” she hummed, giggling like a schoolgirl. Could he blame her? _She_ might as well be _a schoolgirl, if she wasn’t a dropout_ , a voice thundered at the back of his mind, thick and heavy and one he usually managed to keep half-dormant. _She is closer to Tommen’s age than she is to yours. You’re fucking an adolescent._  

 

“Ahem, _Sheila_ , weren’t you heading upstairs? The master bed needs fresh sheets, I think.”

 

Shae gave a foxy smile, hinting at the probable state of his furniture. He’d have to spend hours getting the smell of her juices off them. “It sure _does_.” She sent Tommen an air kiss. “Later handsome.”

 

“Sheila! Sheila! I’ve got a great idea!”

 

“No, nuh-uh,” Tyrion intervened, already having a clear idea where this might be headed. “No more great ideas. That’s enough revolutionizing for a single night—”

 

“Let’s hear it, baby.”

 

“Oh for f—”

 

“Let’s play a game! All three of us!”

 

“That could be fun. Certainly more fun than _fixing beds_ all by myself, all night long. If only your uncle would stop being such a nasty, sulky _buzzkill_ …”

 

“Come on, uncle Tyrion. _Pwe-e-ease_.”

 

Tyrion tried to ignore the two adorable, pleading faces that stared up at him in shameless charm porn, and failed miserably.

 

“One round.”

 

“One round!”

 

“And then you go to bed.”

 

“Well…”

 

“You have to promise now, handsome.”

 

“ _Both_ of you,” Tyrion stressed, earning himself an eye roll.

 

“Fine.”

 

“Pinkie swear.”

 

As he was setting up the board, Tyrion’s thoughts seemed to slow down to a crawl.

 

 _What the hell am I doing here?_ He, the dwarf, playing family. With a whore and a nephew, at that. The only way this could get any more ridiculous was if Cersei herself barged in straddling a unicorn, carrying a peace offer.  

 

Cersei. Right. Fuck.

 

 _What if he tells his mother about that nice little maid his uncle keeps as a pet? Do I tell him not to tell? He’s a damn child._ How did he even make sure the kid would follow through? _Do I offer him fucking candy in exchange for his silence?_ What kind of an uncle bribed his kid nephew into not telling on his secret whore? Oh right, the lecherous kind that ran another nephew over with his car.

 

“Alright handsome, let’s see what you’ve got.”

 

“Let uncle Tyrion start, he’s been so good!”

 

“Oh, he really has.” Shae grinned, flicking her tongue at him suggestively when Tommen wasn’t looking. “Come on, _uncle Tyrion_ , it’s your turn.”

 

Tyrion settled back in his cushion, not showing but feeling a weird tremor pass through his body. He reached for his set of pawns, listening as Tommen engaged in poor imitations of animal battle cries to the accompaniment of Shae’s husky laughter, grudgingly admitting to himself that this was what he’d always wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, yes, I realize it's been three months. In my defense, it was almost half an year before I managed to pull chapter two from my uncooperative brain cells. Anyway, this may have seemed like a filler chapter of sorts (it's actually not, all those things happening do have consequences *hint-hint* so pay attention, people) but bear with me. Pace will be picking up with the next few chapters or so I hope. Thank you for reading, as per usual, and see you whenever.


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